My Android phone is an excellent device. It can run more powerful apps than the Apple iPhone, it has a larger screen with higher resolution, and you can swap out parts or even build an entirely new phone with parts from China if you're adventurous enough (and your warranty is already voided).
But what makes Android better than Iphone? Here are a few reasons.
Customizable home screens
With Iphone, you get one home screen with all your apps on it. Sure, if you're jailbroken you can get multiple app docks or folders or whatever, but that doesn't seem to be what Apple wants people doing. On the other hand, Android lets you put any of your favorite apps where ever you want them on the home screen…if they fit there. If 17 different clock widgets don't fit in an app dock, well…tough luck for you. You might not realize how nice this is until you've had it for awhile and go back to an Iphone (which I did). I still miss being able to slap my favorite apps on the home screen without being constrained by Apple's one home screen per app dock.
The app drawer is terrible, but at least it can be hidden when not needed
Iphone has a terrible app drawer that pops out when you press the home button. It just feels slow and lazy. And once you're in an app, if you hit the home button, instead of taking you back to where you were before (like every other operating system), It clears all your recently used apps from memory so it can put some stupid ads on there too…without asking first! Yeah cool feature Apple, way to treat your users as cash cows. But I digress…Android lets you swipe away the app drawer altogether so it doesn't take up space on your screen until you actually need it. That's a nice touch and makes Android feel quite a bit more polished than Iphone. It also has folders which are not just ultra slow shortcuts to apps, that show you the apps in there, but actually contain completely separate screens of apps inside them! That blows my mind every time I use it.
The widgets are useful
Android allows for interactive widgets on your home screen so you can do things like check your email or see what appointments you have coming up next week without ever opening an app. You can even peek at your texts if someone sent you something while another app was open. Yeah, Apple added something similar in iOS 7, but Android did it first and did it better because they don't restrict how many widgets you can put on one screen like Apple does. You can even make any app into a widget, as long as you're willing to root your phone (which we recommend).
Apple is super restrictive
Iphones lack basic functionality that should be included with every smartphone and I'm surprised it hasn't been added yet. For example:
– You can't move apps or widgets to the home screen unless they were downloaded from Istore (or jailbroken)
– You can't change default apps for things like SMS, email, etc without jailbreaking. So if you want IOS's crappy built in Mail app to handle your Gmail account instead of the Gmail app that you spent an extra $5 on just it would support multiple accounts and not make you tap through 7 menus to get to your inbox…well I guess you're out of luck.
– You can't create home screen shortcuts for apps that exist in more than one screen, like settings or the camera roll. So if you want a shortcut on your home screen that takes you directly to the location in the “Camera Roll” app where all your screenshots are saved (which is useful when someone texts you a screenshot of directions somewhere), too bad!
– You can't uninstall built in apps unless jailbroken…what's up with that?! Apple clearly knows people don't use their crappy Mail app because they have to pay an extra $5 just so it will support multiple accounts, so why not let us delete it?
– You can't put apps in folders, like the hundreds of game apps you've downloaded that fill up your home screen, unless jailbroken.
I could go on and on about how restrictive IOS is but I'm too busy looking forward to my Android device that has none of these stupid restrictions! If you're an app developer or work for a tech company and do presentations all the time…Android's home screen widgets make life so much easier and less distracting than constantly opening and closing apps (especially since most people download way more apps than they need). Lastly, I'd like to mention that with Android everything is customization: fonts, theme colors, notification tones/ringtones/vibration patterns/arm tones, etc.
