Once 
upon a time, we had the likes of Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry, Microsoft amongst others that all tried developing and running their own Operating systems. Blackberry, for example was hugely successful for close to a decade! but over time, two operating systems have stood out remarkably, the iOS and Android. Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS are operating systems now used primarily 95% of mobile technology devices, i.e., smartphones and tablets.
While they do seem to be the best, they do have very obvious differences. Let’s highlights a few.
EXPANDABLE STORAGE
Some android phones come with a micro-SD card slot that can be used to add extra storage to your device. This is great if you want to store lots of movies, pictures, music and documents on a micro-SD card so that your internal storage doesn’t get filled up and can be used for other applications. On the other hand, all iPhone models use internal memory that cannot be expanded. However, there are ways to expand your iPhone’s storage without deleting files by plugging in a flash drive such as SanDisk iXpand flash drive to expand storage via the lightning port.
CUSTOMIZATION
Android is much more customisation friendly than iOS by my estimation. One simple example of how android is more customisable than iOS is giving the user the ability to place apps anywhere in the app grid. On iOS, apps have to be placed in order from top to bottom with no blank spaces. Aside that, you can install third party launchers on iOS that allows you to change the actual size of the app grid, change the icon pack, the animations and much more.
FILE MANAGEMENT
On iOS, there is a no centralised file system, this makes file management cumbersome. Apps on iOS do not have direct access to the file system, instead apps are only allowed to directly access files on their own folder. This means that, if you want an app to have direct access to a file for some reason, you would have to export that file from the file manager to the app you want to use in it. On android, you have a centralised file system that apps can access to your file system and then all videos stored on your phone will be accessible through the video LAN client (vlc app).
But the obvious preference for either falls entirely on the preference of the user or consumer. To analyse user opinion on Android and iOS software a vox pop was conducted on technology enthusiasts between the ages of 18-40 years, on the topic “Which phone would you buy in 2022; Android/iOS, why?’’.
Below are some of their responses.
“From my personal experience, I will go for Android because: it is user friendly, most of the apps are free, cost friendly, transferring files and apps to a new android device is very simple. Ultimately, android’s processing is smooth against iOS’’. (Jerry, 32 yrs.).
“I think Android has more advantages than Apple, for instance, many apps are free on Android while on iPhone it must be paid for, and the accessories of Android are cheaper than that of iPhone. In conclusion, I think android is better than iPhone, so I’ll purchase the former instead of the latter’’. (Ms. Gertrude Annang, 24 yrs.)
“iPhone is the best operating system. I have been using iOS for over 5 years and I love it because Apple is known for its quality and good features and that puts it above Android. I will still choose iOS over Android’’. (Kwame Anim, 31 yrs.).
“Fashion is my thing. I’ll purchase iPhone if I have the means because it gives you some kind of standard. I also love taking pictures and iPhone’s camera quality is great’’. (Maame Efua Tay, 19 yrs.).
“According to me, Android will be the best resort I should go for. This is because, Android gives me the flexibility and freedom to do anything I want with my device while with iOS you are restricted to many things. For example, you cannot even download an application from the internet’’. In my opinion, Android is an operating system and iPhone is a smartphone (Mr. Charles Kotei, 40 yrs.).
With the above, you can decide which operating system best suits you. However, you should choose your smartphone carefully when switching from Android to iPhone(iOS). They both make compelling arguments and are both beneficial to the end user in every way. These are just my views based on my experience using both.
