[jvannistelrooy]

For my job as an app Product Manager, I use several different devices on a daily basis. I also switch between an iPhone and Android phone as my personal device every half year or so, to stay up-to-date with both platforms.

I think articles like these are interesting to read, but not relevant anymore. iPhones and high-end Android devices both offer a mature user experience, and you can't objectively say that one is better than the other.

The choice of one OS over another depends entirely on your personal use cases, and of course personal taste. This is also reflected by all the valid, but personal reasons people list in this thread to choose a specific OS.

[yawn]

Agreed. I switch every once in a while (iPhone 3GS -> Evo 4G -> Nexus 4 -> Nexus 5 -> iPhone 8) to keep things interesting. Most of the apps I used on Android are present in iOS. I would give an edge to Android on general OS design and a big edge on notifications (coming from Android, notifications on iOS are embarrassing). Overall, I think it's a wash though.

[microtonal]

iPhones and high-end Android devices both offer a mature user experience, and you can't objectively say that one is better than the other.

I agree. Both are great. It boils down mostly to:

- Are you in the Google ecosystem: Google Apps are greater on Android.

- Do you use a Mac: iDevices and Macs do handoff (you can take your phone calls on the Mac, continue typing an e-mail on your iDevice, etc.).

- How many years and how regular do you want security updates. Here generally: iDevices > Google Pixel > non-Google Android.

- How convenient are you with Apple or Google having a chunk of your private data.

Also, more in general, non-Google Android can be a terrible mess. For instance, I used Motorola phones for a while, they used to update phones pretty quickly after Google, but then you were stuck with the extremely buggy .0 version for a long time. Android 5.0 on my Moto X 2013 or 2014 (I don't remember) was terrible, since it had a memory leak. It took them > 6 months to start pushing out fixes.

[jvannistelrooy]

> I agree. Both are great. It boils down mostly to:

You make a couple of good points, but I think it's again down to your personal situation and taste that makes it "boil down" to these points.

[robolife1]

While the transition of management screwed it, Moto X 2013 was one of the best Android phones manufactured.

[cdubzzz]

How have you found support between the platforms?

I tend to agree with your thoughts here, and this article seems like nothing more than very minor personal taste notes, but I have only used iPhones for the past six years or so.

What I have done is support both iPhones and Android devices at work. When someone’s iPhone would break or have issues, I would take it to an Apple store and usually get the issue resolved or a replacement phone the same day. On the other hand, dealing with any sort of support issue for Samsung Galaxy devices was a damn nightmare. Those had to be shipped to some processing plant in TX and Samsung had a painfully bad website for tracking the repair. I had one instance where there just sent the phone back a few weeks later with no updates or information on the web. It took numerous phone calls and wasted time to find out they wouldn’t repair its screen issue because it had a third-party battery.

Perhaps (and hopefully) Google is better about this than Samsung, but those support experiences are what led me to prefer Apple’s ecosystem for personal use.

[gvurrdon]

I recall trying to get support for an odd issue on the Galaxy Nexus - it seems some devices would be unable to connect to 5GHz wifi after a few days or weeks of use, and mine was affected. Probably a hardware fault. Not only did Samsung's staff appear unable to understand the issue, their response was only to reinstall the OS (which took them over a week), which had no effect whatsoever. They claimed that they wouldn't replace it until the OS reinstall had been tried by them three times without success. Before it got to this point I returned it to the supplier for a refund, after wasting a bit of time on "not our problem, for faults contact the manufacturer" and "not our problem, for refunds or replacements contact the vendor". Whether or not this was typical I cannot say, but it did rather put me off.

[jvannistelrooy]

I don't think I have the same level of experience with support as you do, but in general my experience with Apple and Samsung is the same as yours. I never needed Google's support, so I can't tell you if that's better.

[RegBarclay]

I agree and generally say people should just pick the one they like and go with it because the devices are generally at parity.