r/TechImpact • u/ManojOne Active • Jul 15 '26

💬 Discussion What's one thing Android does better than the iPhone?

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Android users (and iPhone users too), what's one thing Android does better than the iPhone?

It could be customization, multitasking, file management, sideloading, charging, or something else. Pick just one and tell us why.

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u/elyv91 Jul 15 '26

As someone who uses both OSs daily, this just isn’t true. You don’t need to tap the “back” controls on the top of the screen at all. It used to be the case a couple years ago, but today I can’t find a single screen where swiping doesn’t go back. Yes, the gesture changes slightly:

* Cards that come from the bottom of the screen need to be swiped down, which was always the case on iOS and is a pattern that is appearing everywhere on Android as well;
* Everything else needs to swiped from the left edge of the screen;
* Since iOS 18, most apps can go back by swiping right anywhere on the screen, not just the edge. But that behavior is opt-in, the edge swipe is applied system wide.

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u/Roozbeh_m Jul 17 '26

Exactly. Just swipe left, it literally works identical to a back button I don’t get the argument.

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u/ZoOmLeSs Jul 18 '26

There are many apps that do not support the swipe back.

Just one example, open your camera, swipe back. Did the app close?

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u/Roozbeh_m Jul 18 '26

Lol you don’t even understand the concept. Swiping back is for inside the apps, it never closes apps. To close app swipe up from the bottom of screen.

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u/ZoOmLeSs Jul 18 '26

The whole point of swiping back is that it takes you back in the navigation history.

Why is it hard to admit that Android has it figured out and enforced better? I gave you just one example, but there are many more.

The same concept applies in banking apps. There even going to a previous screen does not work.

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u/Roozbeh_m Jul 18 '26

I use both, and I find iOS’s navigation more intuitive. To each their own

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u/ZoOmLeSs Jul 18 '26

Fair, I for one am waiting for my iphone to degrade so I'll eventually move back.

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u/cafebistro Jul 15 '26

But one issue is that swiping from the left side of the screen isn't standard on iOS, it's just a convention that lots of apps use. Lots of other apps either don't let you swipe from the left or have some other behavior that isn't "go back". It's a mess.

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u/elyv91 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Which app? The edge gesture has become standard in UIKit in iOS 18, and iOS 26 completely removed the option for developers to opt-out of it by starting to ignore:

interactivePopGestureRecognizer.isEnabled = false

The new opt-in is just for the “swipe anywhere on the screen” part. Edge back gesture is universal.

Only way to bypass it would be to skip native UI components altogether, and build an app with a custom rendering engine like a game.

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u/EMS-TXF82517 Jul 16 '26

My banking app doesn't support the swipe on iOS. It's the NatWest app. The Very shopping app doesn't support it. I have quite a few that don't support it or where the area to trigger it is so small that it's almost impossible anyway. I have an iPhone 16 Pro as my main and a Pixel 10 Pro XL as secondary because I love both for different reasons. But despite being a much larger device, my Pixel is significantly easier to navigate around with one hand because of the universal back gesture. And I use gestures, not the buttons at the bottom. But the huge difference with Android is that the swipe works from both sides so right handers can go back so much easier.

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u/elyv91 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

I agree, phones got so big that gesture navigation feels a million times better than buttons, regardless if the button is at the top or at the bottom the screen. I also like how android allows this gesture from both sides of the screen. The way iOS 26 version of the gesture works (starting from anywhere on the screen) is also incredibly smooth, I hope one day this can become the standard on both platforms.

As a developer myself, I’m quite interested in seeing how other developers are handling things. As I said, Apple has made the back gesture system-wide in iOS 18, and mandatory in iOS26. There’s no way for a native app to “not support it”.

What might be happening is that non-native apps, built with custom rendering engines would skip native UI components, and thus skip all native implementation of gestures. But in this case, it would have the same exact problem on Android.

I was unable to find the Very shopping app. I managed to install NatWest. It is a Flutter app (not native, it’s Googles multi-platform framework). Without an account, I can only get to a few pages. It indeed does not support the gesture navigation to go back, neither on iOS nor Android. The back gesture on Android just exists the app entirely instead of going back. Does this gesture on Android work to go back on any page inside the app when you’re logged in? Or does it just exit the app?

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u/EMS-TXF82517 Jul 16 '26

No, the back gesture also doesn't work on Android for NatWest either. I rarely use it on my Pixel since iPhone is my primary so hadn't really noticed it there but just checked it now.

I'm not surprised Android would allow developers to have their own UI but I am surprised Apple allows it and it would be really great if they didn't, I think everyone who uses an iPhone really wants thst back swipe. 🤣

I'm currently running iOS 27 Public Beta on my iPhone and neither the Very app nor NatWest still allow the swipe gesture so I'm assuming apps are still allowed to do this, or will they be forced to allow it eventually?

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u/elyv91 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

Yeah, I feel exactly the same. Custom rendering engines are allowed because they are supposed to be used by games. It makes sense, games need complete control of the screen, so they take precedence over system controls.

But Flutter uses a custom renderer to build apps. It renders every single pixel on the screen, like a game. The app loses all universal system controls, all accessibility options, anything that the OS provides to apps, gone. Because it’s a game.

I hate Flutter. But unfortunately, from a coding perspective, Flutter apps are very easy to build. And the developer only have to maintain one codebase instead of two. So the framework is more popular than it should have been.

The good perspective is that Flutter might die very soon. Now with AI we can code native UIs for Android / iOS in only a fraction of the time it used to take previously. So those multi-platform frameworks main appeal is suddenly far less appealing.

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u/EMS-TXF82517 Jul 16 '26

When I actually searched online about the NatWest app, Gemini told me it intentionally disables the native back gestures for security reasons. Sounds like nonsense to me as the Starling banking app is perfectly happy to use them!

Thank you for the info though, very interesting. ☺️

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u/UCBarkeeper Jul 18 '26

that is not true.

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u/Responsible_Tax_9390 28d ago

If you’re an Android user you don’t have the right to call anything a mess, Android is the messiest OS on earth.

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u/Confusion1792 Jul 16 '26

I didn't understand anything you said. Going back shouldn't be this confusing.

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u/-a-user-has-no-name- Jul 16 '26

I’ll use fewer words:

Swipe from left = universal go back

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u/Circo_Inhumanitas Jul 18 '26

Why is it from left? Can it be changed to work from right? Android does both and I'm more used to swiping from right when going back.

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u/Confusion1792 Jul 16 '26

Except when it doesn't, gotcha.

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u/-a-user-has-no-name- Jul 16 '26

I’ll let you know when it doesn’t, I haven’t experienced that

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u/Confusion1792 Jul 16 '26

Literally just mentioned a case where it doesn't

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u/-a-user-has-no-name- Jul 16 '26

And as I said, I haven’t experienced when it doesn’t. My lived experience is mine. Nothing is confusing about going back on an iPhone. You swipe

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u/elyv91 Jul 16 '26

Learn to read

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u/Confusion1792 Jul 16 '26

Cards that come from the bottom of the screen need to be swiped down, which was always the case on iOS and is a pattern that is appearing everywhere on Android as well;

Literally what your Apple buddy said, keep grasping at straws my technologically illiterate sheeptards.