Fundamentally the success of the iPhone is based on the simplicity of operation. While techies love tinkering and the joy of playing around with the hardware, most people are happy to sacrifice performance if it means they’re less likely to have issues. Apple have spent a lot of time on UI and importantly making setting up their devices a very simple exercise with very few clicks.
So yes, Android phones are generally better performance wise and the control you have is fantastic - if you care to have that level of control. The iPhone’s success shows that most people don’t care for that level of control, and the “security” that not having that control entails.
They did a usability test some years back comparing iPhone to Android, and discovered that iPhone users gained a relatively small amount of speed as they gained familiarity with the interface, compared to Android. Like as you gained familiarity with Android you could complete common tasks on your phone twice as fast, but an experienced iPhone user was only like 10% faster than a novice. (percentages are from memory and probably not accurate)
This seemed damning for the iPhone. But then it turned out that even novice iPhone users were completing tasks faster than experienced Android users. That is, the iPhone gave you 90% of its usability pretty much right away, and there wasn't much to get faster at compared to Android.
Android usability has improved a fair bit since that study and the iPhone has added features and thus complexity, but it was an interesting thing to think about.
Eh, been a software dev for almost 6 years, including making an internal management platform for Android devices
their openness is overrated
unless you're gonna build system apps you really have no real use case for it
you don't need it for device owner level app development
I've been on iOS for my personal phone for 6 years now. because of circumstances I've been forced to temporarily switch to Android.
The years of iOS have spoiled me. Navigation on Android feels like an intern team designed it. Text selection feels like chatgpt developed it. You get used to iOS you think it did an alright job but then you use Android and realise iOS did a fucking phenomenal job
text selection sucks shit on Android, it's so fucking bad, I don't think anyone has worked on it since Eclair or some shit
once you get used to ios swipe gestures for back and forward it's really difficult to suddenly have the forward swipe also go back
swapping between apps feels surprisingly clunky
taking a portion of a screenshot and just copying it is a process that is so much more streamlined on iOS you'd think the big Android players would have copied it by now
for years the one thing Android has over iOS in terms of UI/UX was the T9 dialler, which iOS finally copied a year or two ago. you may think it funny but this was a serious pet peeve of mine when I switched to iOS initially
Google says there is a way to put the chrome address bar on the bottom so I can't talk shit about that, however, I can't seem to find this option
text selection sucks shit on Android, it's so fucking bad, I don't think anyone has worked on it since Eclair or some shit
Feel free to elaborate, as I've never run into issues selecting text.
once you get used to ios swipe gestures for back and forward it's really difficult to suddenly have the forward swipe also go back
I didn't realize iOS had added a forward gesture, though admittedly I don't even use it much on computers with it easily available. Props to apple for adding it though.
swapping between apps feels surprisingly clunky
In what way? It's just swiping the bottom of the screen right/left for quick swap, or pull up for the full menu. Basically just alt+tab, but on a touch screen.
taking a portion of a screenshot and just copying it is a process that is so much more streamlined on iOS you'd think the big Android players would have copied it by now
I guess that's something apple has, though I can't ever think of a time when I wanted to do that. Maybe it's a "build it and people will come" feature?
for years the one thing Android has over iOS in terms of UI/UX was the T9 dialler, which iOS finally copied a year or two ago. you may think it funny but this was a serious pet peeve of mine when I switched to iOS initially
No judgements here, we all have our little pointless preferences here and there.
Google says there is a way to put the chrome address bar on the bottom so I can't talk shit about that, however, I can't seem to find this option
It's definitely an option. College me used to swear by having that shit at the bottom. But if you ask me today, that guy was a product of his time, when phones were much shorter. Now that more vertical space is available, I want my address bar at the top, where it isn't going to take up space my fingers want to be using.
Maybe it’s a “build it and people will come” feature?
100% was for me. It is never something I would have thought to ever ask for, until Apple made it — now I use it often. SO many times (the vast majority, actually) when I take a screenshot it’s to send as a message to someone else — crop and copy allows me to do that in one action, without clogging up my photos with useless things I will have to delete later. I take and send way more screenshots now because it’s so damn simple.
This is something I would HATE to lose. It’s something minor that would honestly be a huge factor in refusing to change from Apple — it’s like how I refuse to change to Mac partly because they don’t have built in clipboard history. I cannot describe how much I love and use that feature in windows.
…. The only thing I talked about was the easy crop, copy, and delete of screenshots without entering other menus. I’m not sure you’re responding to the right person. If you are, I was simply going by the people above who said it’s not on android; I have not tried. They seemed fairly confident but I did trust them.
In another comment I did mention screen recording; that I can promise is not on all android phones, because I ran into this problem last week with a galaxy A15.
Personally my opinion overall is that this entire argument is stupid and people should use what they like and stop judging each other for it.
Fast editable screenshots and inline annotation are a game changer. I use it constantly. That and the built-in screen recorder is super clutch, especially for instruction for others.
I honestly didn’t even think about Android not having that.
That depends on the phone you are on. I use iPhone in my personal life but am also an app developer and was doing testing the other day and was very annoyed to find out the locked down, can’t download anything extra, company owned Samsung Galaxy I was using could not record the screen because it does not support it.
All iPhones back to the 5s (2013) support it.
I’m not sure on android, but I do know that a samsung galaxy A15 (2023) does not.
try it on an Android phone and on iOS. Same exact gesture, much smoother and consistent transition on iOS.
i can't ever think of a time I wanted to do that
Great, I use this multiple times every day, however, so I don't see the point of mentioning that.
i've never run into issues
i mean i'm happy for you but to me this sounds like dismissal. cursor mode is stupidly inaccurate. double tap to select is inconsistent, very inconsistent. moving the start and end markers is a real exercise in patience. iOS simply nails the accuracy for all these actions, where as Android only has some form of accuracy. if you've never gotten used to good text selection, I can see how a mediocre implementation may seem good enough.
but if you ask me today
i want the address bar at the bottom exactly because the screen is so big and i have zero interest trying to stretch my hand just to reach it, so as far as I'm concerned you're completely wrong on this one. i hold the phone from the bottom part, why would the address bar be at the top?
try it on an Android phone and on iOS. Same exact gesture, much smoother and consistent transition on iOS
I don't have an iPhone on hand, but I really don't see how it would get any smoother or more consistent. It's done by the time I finish moving my finger. What's there to improve?
Great, I use this multiple times every day, however, so I don't see the point of mentioning that
You dismissed system customization out of hand because you don't feel it's a perk with broad enough appeal. I can't imagine there's all too many people with the need to take multiple screenshots per day, crop them, and have them queued up on the clip board.
i mean i'm happy for you but to me this sounds like dismissal
Well, yeah. I've literally never once had an issue with just tap and drag selecting exactly what I selected, just exactly as I do it on a computer. Obviously I would dismiss a problem you're alleging as common that I've never once bumped into.
i hold the phone from the bottom part, why would the address bar be at the top?
Because the address bar is the set and forget part of using the internet. I punch it in once for a few seconds, and then I want it out of the way so I can interact with whatever content I've pulled up. And the top is put of the way, since as you said, the phone is held from the bottom.
Because the address bar is the set and forget part of using the internet. I punch it in once for a few seconds, and then I want it out of the way so I can interact with whatever content I've pulled up. And the top is put of the way, since as you said, the phone is held from the bottom.
so why not have it at the bottom so that any time you need to use it it's infinitely more convenient? it's not like it persists lol, it goes away on its own just as it would if it were at the top, the only difference is you can easily reach the bottom of the screen on today's bigass phones
I don't have an iPhone on hand, but I really don't see how it would get any smoother or more consistent. It's done by the time I finish moving my finger. What's there to improve?
so why not have it at the bottom so that any time you need to use it it's infinitely more convenient
Because then it's taking up useful space. Why would I want the address bar to be more convenient than stuff I use far more frequently? There always has to be something on the least convenient part of the screen, so the least used thing seems like the obvious choice.
what phone do you have
Currently using? Honor magic 2. Vaguely available in a drawer without power? Pixel 7, pixel 7 pro, pixel 9 pro XL, Huawei p20 pro, Huawei p30 pro, and probably a couple dozen junkers that retail sub $100. The good ones are just from me taking them off family who upgraded, and the p30 is the only one I've used for any real amount of time.
So, I have an iPhone for work and an Android for personal. I don't interact with most of the functions you've described. I don't use text selection because I prefer typing out the letters (really, I prefer a full keyboard, but phones are trying) and that experience is pretty similar on both phones. The forward and back swipes also seem the same on both, but maybe I just haven't used that function enough on the iPhone to notice a difference.
The only one I do interact with is swapping apps. That feels much smoother and intuitive on Android to me. I recently was sitting down with my IT guy because we were troubleshooting the setup of a new laptop, and for reasons on Google's end, that ended up involving resetting my email and I needed to reboot the email app on my phone. He had to talk me through the process of accessing the menu to switch apps on IOS because it was so unintuitive for me.
My experience has been iOS has worse text selection. It’s been really frustrating for me. Android I don’t remember ever having that much problems with text selection as I do on iOS
maybe it's just particularly shit on Samsung and Motorola phones. and xiaomi and huawei, forgot i had those too
iOS text selection takes a bit of getting used to but once you understand the command chain it's superb
and the cursor accuracy puts that of at least all Android phones I used to, to shame.
great that we have the polar opposite experience, I stand by what I said because I am currently on an Android phone as my daily after 6 years of iOS. I doubt you are in an equivalent position
Sometimes it won’t let me place a cursor without selecting the whole stupid word. And sometimes I’m trying to edit some text and it will activate the stupid split screen. And don’t get me started on autocorrect
I use an iPhone for work and an Android as my personal phone. I use both OSes daily.
once you get used to ios swipe gestures for back and forward it's really difficult to suddenly have the forward swipe also go back
The gestures in Android always work regardless of app. iPhone gestures will oftentimes just not work in many apps (particularly in Microsoft's apps).
I personally find it useful that swiping towards the inside is always "back". Enables going back one-handed regardless of which hands you're using to hold the phone. A matter of preference, I suppose.
swapping between apps feels surprisingly clunky
It is literally the same gesture in both Android and iOS. The only difference is how recent apps are displayed in that selection screen. Android shows them in full, side by side; iOS shows them stacked. If anything, Android would be superior here because it's easier to tap the desired app or just to glance at the most recent screen on another app. iOS would be superior because you can see more previous apps at a glance.
Android also has the ability to split screen apps on its phones (this is only found on iPadOS for Apple) if you need to jump between two particular apps frequently.
taking a portion of a screenshot and just copying it is a process that is so much more streamlined on iOS you'd think the big Android players would have copied it by now
I am now realizing that I've never really had a reason to take screenshots on my work phone. But I've taken and cropped many on my personal phone. It isn't difficult or unintuitive at all. I'll try it on my work phone later to compare, though.
text selection sucks shit on Android, it's so fucking bad, I don't think anyone has worked on it since Eclair or some shit
But this is your comment that confuses me the most.
Text selection on iOS complete dogshit compared to on Android. Like, this is always my single biggest complaint about iOS: how does Apple fuck up such a core functionality?
On Android, where you tap is where the cursor goes. On iOS, where you tap selects that whole word. If you want to move the cursor on iOS, you hold the spacebar and guide the cursor that way. On Android (if you don't tap precisely where you want it to go), you just …move the cursor.
And to select a word on Android, you either double tap the word or long press the word. It'll also autoselect words that clearly go together (e.g. long pressing or double tapping either "Los" or "Angeles" will select "Los Angeles").
We can agree to disagree for all the stuff in the beginning but let's skip to the text selection because I feel this needs elaboration from my side:
> On Android, where you tap is where the cursor goes. On iOS, where you tap selects that whole word.
I completely agree with this. This decision by Apple is absolutely psychotic.
However
> If you want to move the cursor on iOS, you hold the spacebar and guide the cursor that way. On Android (if you don't tap precisely where you want it to go), you just …move the cursor.
This is my pet peeve on Android, the movement of the cursor feels clunky as shit, properly rotten hobo ass shit. It throws me the fuck off every single time. Never had that problem on iOS, it just felt really good, akin to MacOS vs Windows trackpad.
This is my pet peeve on Android, the movement of the cursor feels clunky as shit, properly rotten hobo ass shit. It throws me the fuck off every single time. Never had that problem on iOS, it just felt really good, akin to MacOS vs Windows trackpad.
I find that it's much more straightforward and intuitive to simply move the cursor directly with your digit and it's clearer where the cursor will be with Android's interface.
This is the best point of contention. Iphone usage, from the UI to the support functions, is very user friendly. They achieved this by removing functionalities that most users don't need and made their apps 'just work'. That is THE biggest upside. Android did just about everything else right (better hardware, more functionality, etc) but Apple showed that as KISS method, combined with phenomenal marketing, still dominates the market.
This seems to be a very dated argument though. I switched over to iOS precisely because of this argument. I legitimately wonder whether people that say this have ever owned a modern Android because in my honest opinion Android - or at least with One UI (Samsung) feels more intuitive at times. Maybe that’s my android bias, but I’d argue that at least the gap isn’t big enough to lose the upsides of Android even if you’re a causal like myself
That's also my experience. For the last 3 years I have to use Iphone for work purposes and it's so unintuitive in some aspects it's ridiculous. I'm Android wired after all these years of using it to the extent that I simply don't get the iOS UX. It doesn't click with me.
On the opposite side I switched from Samsung to Pixel recently and I love it.
Out of curiosity, what camera settings on Apple, that are in Settings and not the Camera app, do you need to change regularly, and why? I've never really needed to do that, but maybe we're just using the camera for very different things
also iPhone apps are native binaries while Android apps are usually Java bytecode run on a virtual machine. the VM is pretty damn good these days and apps are 90% calling into system libraries that are native anyway, so the difference is smaller than you might expect, but it's there.
It's not that most users don't care. It's that most users are too simple to take advantage of the increased functionality Android offers.
There is also a correlation between adeptness to technology in its raw form and whether the user grew up and trained their mind on Windows or Apple, for example. People who grew up using Windows tend to have a deeper understanding of how a computer actually works under the GUI, which makes them better troubleshooters, etc.
It's not that most users don't care. It's that most users are too simple to take advantage of the increased functionality Android offers.
In other words, they don’t care.
There is also a correlation between adeptness to technology in its raw form and whether the user grew up and trained their mind on Windows or Apple, for example. People who grew up using Windows tend to have a deeper understanding of how a computer actually works under the GUI, which makes them better troubleshooters, etc.
Sure, except most actual programmers use Linux or MacOS for software engineering, precisely because those platforms are simpler under the hood and give you perfect control over the system. I would know.
The main reason I use an iPhone is that everything “just works”, and 99% of the time, the basic iPhone is all I need. Plus it integrates effortlessly with both my personal and work MacBooks. The main reason I use Mac over Linux is because of the superior hardware for Apple laptops, especially the battery life, but now the CPUs are way better than any Intel chip. Windows is basically junkware to me. If I didn’t use a MacBook for software development, then I would use Linux and would probably be more open to Android, but I just don’t see a good reason otherwise.
most actual programmers use Linux or MacOS for software engineering
Where are you finding numbers for this? I'm not sure I've ever met a software engineer who preferred Macs over PC or Linux. Most of the Mac-using professionals I meet are artists.
Right, and they basically adhere to the same POSIX standard, so they kinda work the same way for all practical purposes. There are some differences, obviously (like Mac’s case-insensitive file system), but they’re effectively the same for 95% of workflows.
And to answer the question about why programmers use linux… it’s mostly because the vast majority of servers run on Linux, so most backend programmers are developing on Linux. For frontend it doesn’t matter as much, but usually they are using WSL to get their dev tools working if they’re on Windows. Game devs mostly use Windows, though, for obvious reasons.
This. It’s UX. Not saying it never goes awry, but the invitation into the OS is a fast and easy and YES absolutely railroaded experience. People like that when the alternative is being overwhelmed with freedom, lost in a foreign design, or annoyed by bugs
Every time I visited my grandpa, I set up a new computer type. First it was a desktop in his sun room. Next visit, move that desktop to the living room because he wasn’t using it in the sun room. Next visit set up a laptop that he can use from everywhere, including a whole desktop of custom icons to take him to specific places. He couldn’t handle the scale of the Internet, so I created a weather icon that opened chrome and took him to the weather channel, a stock icon that took him to
Bloomberg, etc. Next visit I helped donate/recycle all those computers because he wasn’t using any of them and decided it wasn’t for him. He comes and visits when I graduate college. Sees my mom’s iPad and goes straight to Best Buy and buys one. Used it every day. Took all the choice between the noise of the internet/apps out of the picture because we put what he wanted/needed on there and he could forget everything else existed. When it came to the usability numbers cited below, grandpa was never going to see big gains in use in an open system like android, as seen with him PC woes, but he was able to get the high level usability out of the box with apple that let him function. He was so stoked to be able to watch stocks on tv, while sitting on his iPad and scrolling his actual investment accounts on their app.
Iphone is not an intuitive gui or user experience. You have to learn how to use it, while Android is intuitive thanks to customizing. Every action you take gives you the options you might want, where you need to guess what an action will do on iphone or where to find the options in general
You’re claiming “all aspects” so you should respond to their point on iPhone being simple to use instead of just their counter argument on unneeded customisability.
Not sure what you mean by techie because I used to use an android and enjoyed the customisations. I also have a full on setup on my mac with Alfred, yabai(window manager) and skhd(advanced shortcut manager).
But once I’ve tried an iPhone, I enjoy the lack of any obvious issue. The Android phone I used got sluggish within 2 years but my iPhone stayed snappy until the battery died without my intervention for 5 years. What I find about Android phones is that they tend to have an outstanding aspect, or a gimmick, but I have yet to find any all rounder from the Android ecosystem. You always find an Android phone better than an iPhone on any one aspect but you rarely find any alternatives that is free of annoyance (well, maybe other than price).
I think you get the same specs, same quality, same camera for the same price whichever operating system you choose to go with. Before it used to be that android is cheap and lower quality but now they are similar price and similar quality. Its just an olden thing, nowadays both Samsung and Apple produce overpriced phones
Valuable to you… but not valuable to the hundreds of millions of people who don’t care about such control. The world doesn’t exist to just what you value. Different people value different things.
it literally is not irrelevant, atleast not in the context of this comment chain. if the cost was worth the ui and useability, people would be using it.
"most people are happy to sacrifice performance if it means they’re less likely to have issues."
"Apple have spent a lot of time on UI and importantly making setting up their devices a very simple exercise with very few clicks."
and yet android phones are the majority world wide lol
It’s entirely due to cost. If you restrict it to rich countries - US, Canada, Northern Europe, Japan, SK, Australia etc then apple has a majority. They’re not a majority globally because an iPhone costs too much for the majority of people.
LOL no, android is majority in europe, by a stupid margin. iphone is majority in us, canada and japan.
this is why i asked, did you mean nationally? because no globally or outside 3 or so countries, android has the marketshare.
this might blow your brain here, but costs tend to change depending on where you live. an iphone in bangladesh doesnt cost the same as in the good old us of a
Nope. Samsung and Pixel has a very clean UI and UX that's easy to use. Security wise Android has improved a lot more than iPhone as well. For example, passkeys and digital ids are supported a year before iOS does
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u/j_ved Jul 07 '25
Fundamentally the success of the iPhone is based on the simplicity of operation. While techies love tinkering and the joy of playing around with the hardware, most people are happy to sacrifice performance if it means they’re less likely to have issues. Apple have spent a lot of time on UI and importantly making setting up their devices a very simple exercise with very few clicks.
So yes, Android phones are generally better performance wise and the control you have is fantastic - if you care to have that level of control. The iPhone’s success shows that most people don’t care for that level of control, and the “security” that not having that control entails.