(upbeat music)
♪ Ooh ♪ - All right, welcome to the definitive iPhone
versus Android video. It's the impossible debate, right? In a lot of ways, people just get so entrenched on one side that they never wanna
flip to the other side. To each their own. You hear that all the time,
but I have a solution. So here's how we're gonna do this. So I'm gonna break this down into seven actually meaningful categories, so it's an odd number, so there
has to be a winner, no tie, but since we're not
psychos and we know that one winner doesn't automatically apply to every human on earth, I'm actually gonna give you a system, a rubric to help figure out
the real winner for yourself. You'll see what I mean. Let's get into it. So, all right. Category number one. Customization. Basically, if you see this
icon and you get excited, then you probably love customization too. So, digging into the settings and messing around with the
home screen and the lock screen and tweaking things and behaviors to make the device
absolutely perfect for you, I mean, it's a hobby all on its own. Now, at first in 2023, it
might actually seem like iOS 17 and Android 14
are pretty close, right? I mean, let's be real. iOS just added a bunch
of really good features that are very well done. The new lock screen update
gives you the ability to change all these clock fonts and colors and put various super useful
widgets on your lock screen and then save a bunch of
different lock screen setups for different situations
and different focus modes, and then widgets were also
added to the home screen less than two years ago as well, so that unlocked a ton of customization of home screen setups displaying
glanceable information, but the more you look into it, the more you realize it's
not actually that close, and a lot of this really just
comes down to the fact that Apple, they do keep adding
all these abilities, but you're always restricted to doing it the Apple way, the correct way, and so that's why a lot of iPhone setups still just kind of look the same. Like, even if you just
take stock Android 14 from the Google Pixel, which isn't even the most
customizable version of Android, there's still way more
that you can change, from the colors of the theme of the OS matching the color of your
wallpaper thanks to Material You to icon packs, custom widget sizes. I mean, Android will just kind of let you do whatever you want. On the iPhone, you can't expand a widget
to any size you want. You can't put an app just on the right side of your
home screen for reachability. You literally can't even place an app wherever you want on the home screen. It must be the next up in
the grid of Apple's choosing. You can't change the grid's size. You can't change the icon sizes. I mean, it just takes a
whole bunch of extra work and a Siri Shortcuts hack
just to use a custom icon. Just basic stuff. Now, I think the other
side of that coin is you can make a truly ugly,
horrible Android setup, where you can't really mess up an iPhone home screen that much. So, while you can definitely argue that iOS does it prettier, the winner for most customization,
that would be Android. So, then category number
two, features, all right? Just straight up which
one can do more stuff. This has been one of the hottest debates at the forefront of iOS versus Android conversations you always hear, mostly because both
platforms, at some level, launched missing features,
but especially the iPhone. Like, you'd always hear, "Wow, can you believe the iPhone
can't even set wallpapers?" And then it was, "Can
you believe the iPhone is just now getting copy
and paste, seriously?" And then it's, "Wow, it's crazy that iOS is just getting widgets
now a decade later." But, hey, now, it's 2023 and
they're both very complete, and even in the ways that they're not, they're copying each other all the time. You always see a new keynote
with new stuff on Android, and you're like, that came from iOS, and then you'll see stuff
from the iPhone keynote and be like, that came from Android, but there's even some new stuff now that the iPhone has that Android doesn't. A pretty good one recently is focus modes, which gives you super high
control over notifications in various different situations with your apps and your contacts. There are also a lot of privacy features, things like Hide My Email with iCloud Plus and iCloud Private Relay. You could even argue that
Dynamic Island on the Pro iPhone is a feature if you want to, but, I mean, I just couldn't because only a small
handful of apps support it, but it's something pretty cool and unique, which is more and more rare than ever in the smartphone world. At this point, though, neither OS is really missing
any gigantic features anymore. They've both matured up to this level where they're their own character. They both do a lot of stuff, but I still am gonna have to give the edge to Android in this one just because there are
so many little, like, tweaky, like little OS-level features, just little things that you
can tweak and change on Android that still just are not on the iPhone. So I'm talking like
battery management features to customized charging speeds or set manual charge limits
to preserve battery life. There's also an actual
file management system so you can drag and drop things onto your phone into certain
folders if you want to. There's gaming-specific
features like game modes, the ability to dial up and down your screen's refresh
rate whenever you want to. Independent volume controls for phone calls and ringtones and alarms. Also, reverse wireless
charging comes up a lot for charging wireless earbuds without breaking out a separate cable. Really, just, it comes down
to the benefit of Android is having so much feature choice. That's kind of the point, and this also bleeds into hardware too. So, even if the feature you want is a huge camera with no notch, then you have to get an
Android phone, right? So, if the feature is a super
fast charging or a 10x camera or USB Type-C, as of right now, it's
gotta be an Android phone. So, even though they both
offer all of the basic features and they appear to copy
each other all the time on little added stuff, the winner here, again,
is definitely Android. Now, number three is ease of use. Now, ease of use is very
valuable to a lot of people, like a lot of people, and the
thing about ease of use is it often basically has
an inverse relationship with customization and a ton of features, 'cause there's this delicate balancing act you have to do of having flexibility, giving flexibility to the user, but not overwhelming them with a ton of buttons and settings, and this is really where the iPhone excels and has excelled for years
as a high priority for sure, even in the most fundamental ways. The home screen on the iPhone has had up to four icons in the dock on every iPhone since the beginning, and the phone icon has always been green and always been on the left
every single time for 17 years. The iPhone's camera app, we've all seen that stay
fundamentally the same with the viewfinder and the sliding modes. It's been like that for years, and that kind of tucks
away a lot of the settings into a separate settings app and it can feel like
it's missing features, but, honestly, it's still the easiest and most straightforward
for most people to use. It's like they hate changing
things for no good reason. The calculator has basically
been unchanged for years. Now, there's also downsides to that, like Siri has basically been ignored since it was introduced, but, still, like, Apple moves the call end
button by like 200 pixels to the middle of the screen
and people freak out about it. Sometimes, it feels like Android versions will
just move stuff around just kind of to try it and for
the sake of changing things, and sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn't. They'll move it back, and that's interesting
and exciting sometimes, but that does hurt just user
continuity and ease of use. Maybe not for you watching this video, but just think for the average person, like for your five closest friends. Think about how they use their phone. Yeah, then throw on top of that, there's basically never any bloatware loaded onto the iPhone ever,
and then customer service is basically always better for an iPhone because Apple stores are everywhere and Apple controls that entire experience, for better or for worse, so they get to do great
work with customers. So it's just for people
who are not enthusiasts who just wanna get the thing
and not think about it anymore, they pretty much always
go with the iPhone. So ease of use is a
checkbox for the iPhone. By the way, if you're enjoying
this video, get subscribed. Why not? It's free. All right, so we gotta talk about updates. So number four is support. So this is something that I would classify as kind of underrated, just because I don't think enough people buy their new phone that
they plan on having for years with this in mind. I think having the latest
and greatest updates, software, and security
patches as quick as possible and as long as possible
should be a priority, but it usually isn't for people. Either way, it's kind of a
mixed bag across the board. In Android world, some
companies make no promises or they kind of break their promises. Some have short promises and
some will actually extend out to promising three to four
years of software updates. Weirdly, Samsung right now is the undisputed king of
Android software updates, with some rumors of maybe
Google catching back up, but Samsung announced in 2019 that all devices in 2019 or later will get four years of security updates and some flagships will even get five, but none of them really
come close to the iPhone. When iOS 17 comes out this fall, every iPhone back to
the iPhone 10R from 2018 is officially supported and
gonna get the latest version. That's five major
software version updates. I don't think there are any
Android phones from 2018 that are gonna get the
latest version of Android 14 when it comes out. So this one easily goes to the vertically-integrated Apple phone with the Apple software all day. So, now, my number five category is apps. This one is actually kind of fascinating. So, obviously, we have our standard, like our apps that we
all use every single day on our phones that we're used to, but then sometimes it's fun just sort of popping around
in the respective app stores, discovering new things, finding fun apps, and, at this point, they
are both flourishing. There's millions of apps now. There's over three and a half million apps in the Google Play Store, and over a million and a
half in Apple's App Store, which if you just stop there,
looks like a win for Android, but quality over quantity, my friends. Quality over quantity. Basically, every major app is
available for both platforms, which means there are many
more, you know, niche apps or relatively unknown
possible diamonds in the rough on the Google Play Store,
sure, but the difference is when you actually talk to these developers and observe the cycle of, like, how they get made and how
these apps get updated, the truth is so many of
them are prioritizing iOS, and, really, it's purely for efficiency. Think about it. If you just have to update
one version of your app and it works with all the
newest iPhones instantly and works perfectly for millions of people who all have basically
the same aspect ratio, of course you'd do it, flip that switch, but, with Android, there are naturally
many more complexities. There are a bunch of different devices that all have different aspect ratios and different pixel densities and different feature
support and even foldables, and it's like it's a lot more work to get all of those users up to date with the same level of optimization. It's a lot of different switches to flip, so a lot of 'em just don't
go through all of that or they take way longer to. So the number of titles is one thing, but is it the same Instagram
app on both iPhone and Android? Is it the same Threads app on each one? As someone who's been
carrying and using both phones and often using the
same app on both phones, I have a firsthand experience
of knowing that, often, even with some of Google's own apps, the updates are prioritized on the iPhone. They come first to the iPhone
before they come to Android. I wish that wasn't true. I wish they were just as
easy to do one or the other, but that's just the truth of it. So the slight app advantage is
gonna go to the iPhone here, and interestingly enough, this also applies
generally to accessories. Again, same reason, same efficiency, but that's a win for the iPhone. So then, category number six, I'm gonna go a little more
subjective with this one, but I still think it
matters, which is excitement. Which one is more interesting or exciting in the moment to you? Now, honestly, I get pretty excited for a lot of different
new tech these days, and, actually, because there's only like one or two new
iPhone drops every year, it's actually very easy to get hype built up for the new iPhone, but it's definitely a
different type of excitement with the massive variety of
new innovations and things that come to Android phones all the time. Like, if you just are
interested in folding phones, well, there's more Android
releases than ever for that. Want a gaming phone? There's
gonna be an Android for that. Do you want a headphone jack?
Do you want a compact phone? Do you want the world's fastest charging? Do you want some interesting
new unique designs or materials or textures
or experimental features? Like, that is the world of Android, and if you think about it,
seriously think about this, most of the interesting excitement around every new iPhone
launch, the question really is, is this new iPhone going
to get a new feature that's been in Android phones for years? Like, are we finally gonna
get USB-C on an iPhone? Are we finally gonna get
fast charging on an iPhone? Are we finally gonna get a 5x camera? And so just for that novelty reason alone, the excitement category, that's definitely gotta go to Android. So that brings us to my last category, number seven, ecosystem. We've heard this word before, ecosystem. So, okay, say what you want, but there are a lot of people
who will not buy a phone if it doesn't have iMessage
or FaceTime, whatever it is, and Apple has weaponized this
and built walls around this and closed it off as much as possible. Technically, you can join a
FaceTime from an Android phone, but you can't start one. So I made an entire video
just about Apple's ecosystem. Hate it or love it, it is
important to some people. Now, the thing is Apple is not the only
one with an ecosystem. Like, look at Samsung for example. Apple happens to build bigger walls around keeping people
into their ecosystem, but Samsung has a lot of
equivalents to all the same pieces. Like, you could get a
Samsung Galaxy S flagship and you could quickly and easily connect your Galaxy
Buds just like AirPods. You put on your Galaxy watch with a lot of the same
features as the Apple watch. You tether to a Samsung Tab
just for entertainment purposes, like an iPad, but then
you get a Galaxy Book Pro with cellular internet sharing
and wireless Quick Share, just like a MacBook Pro with AirDrop. You see where I'm going? It
just keeps going and going. I'm sure Samsung is
eventually gonna come out with their smart speaker
to match the home pod. It's totally, totally
coming, but on paper, the idea is they are
surprisingly congruent. So, the way I see it, at
the time of this recording, 'cause this could change very
soon in the next couple weeks, but the main advantages
of Samsung's ecosystem would be things like one USB-C
across literally everything, so you can use one charging
cable for all of your stuff. Two, they make more
different versions of devices that fit into the ecosystem. Like, there are a ton of different phones and a bunch of different watches and different headphones
and laptops, et cetera, so there's more flexibility
and hardware choice. Classic Android, plus Samsung
also makes other stuff that connects, like
dishwashers and refrigerators, but then the advantages
of Apple's ecosystem, not just in the US, but especially here, are, first of all, ease
of use and seamlessness. Like, it is genuinely crazy how good some of the continuity stuff
is in Apple's ecosystem. Like, something like Continuity Camera is so sick every time. You just push one button to use a super high quality
iPhone camera as your webcam. It works very, very well, but then the popularity
factor, especially in the US, makes things like FaceTime and iMessage and the Find My Network super strong. So I can make a whole video on this. I could put up the
strengths and weaknesses and put up just these two
ecosystems up against each other, but, as of right now,
they're both very strong, and I'm gonna give the
slight edge to Apple's, just because, one, I'm in the US and that advantage is strong, but, two, just because of the seamlessness and how well things are integrated and the continuity features are unreal. So, if we tally these all up here, you can see that the objective winner, in four out of the seven
categories that I made up, is the iPhone, but put
your pitchforks down. Guess what? As you've probably picked up from the beginning of this video, there is no objective winner to a decision as personal as this one and when the options are this close. You probably already know, if you've been watching my videos, you know I main an Android phone most of the time alongside an iPhone, but my main phone and my
main customized setups are on the Android phone, so what gives? Like, picking one de facto
winner kind of suggests that the one winner is best for everyone, but we already know that there's
some people who literally don't care about some features that some others would say
they can't live without. So I've devised a very basic system to help you pick your winner for yourself, and it's really quite simple. All you have to do is put these seven categories
in order of importance to you and then rate each one of them let's say on a scale from one to five. So give them a one to five point rating based on how much you care about it. So, here, for me, I care the most about customization and features. Then I care a lot about apps, and excitement and updates
are decently important, but then in my daily driver, ease of use and ecosystem
aren't that big of a deal. I've got a mixed bag. So then I just give the
amount of points earned to each winner of that category. So the winner for me is clearly Android, but, hey, for you, maybe you care a lot about
ecosystem and maybe nothing else. I'm sure you know someone like this. Then the iPhone will clearly
be calling your name, or if you're the type who wants all the features and
excitement in the world, well, then Android probably
is what's in your pocket. You might even have your own
category you could add in that's heavily weighted. I kind of see it like buying a car. Like maybe Cool Factor
is in there. Have at it. It turns out buying a phone is one of the most personal
decisions you make. I've said this before, but, like, it's the thing you spent your money on and you carry everywhere you go, and so that's why people
get so worked up about this side versus that side, but, at the end of the day, the winner, not to be cheesy, is us, because they're competing
against each other to get better to hopefully win you over, and
that's the way it should be. Thanks for watching. Catch you in the next one. Peace. (upbeat music)
♪ Ooh ♪