iPhone vs Android: Which smartphone ecosystem is best for you? | Expert Reviews

When it comes to choosing a new smartphone, the most fundamental question you need to ask yourself is this: do I want an iPhone or Android phone? Having tested all of the best smartphones on the market, we are well positioned to help you answer that question.

Between the two of them, Apple and Google have the phone business all but sewn up. This has been a two horse race at least since Microsoft exited the market in 2017, and realistically since well before that, in terms of pure market share.

Below, we’ll be breaking down the differences between iPhone and Android when it comes to user interface and apps, hardware options, and pricing. We’ll also look at which platform is best for gamers and photographers.

Before we get to that, however, let’s nail down what we mean when we talk about iPhone and Android, and how it differs from popular perception.

What we mean when we talk about iPhone and Android

When most people talk about ‘iPhone or Android’ in the same sentence, they tend to mean Apple smartphones and Google smartphones. In this sense, it would be more accurate to say ‘iPhone or Android phone’.

The term ‘iPhone’ is a catch-all for any Apple-branded smartphone. ‘Android’, on the other hand, is the name of Google’s mobile operating system. One term relates to hardware, the other software.

More comparable to the term ‘iPhone’, then, would be Samsung’s Galaxy range of smartphones, or Google’s own Pixel line. Meanwhile, ‘Android’ is more akin to ‘iOS’, which is the name of Apple’s smartphone operating system.

This confusion over terminology reflects the fact that iPhone and Android represent fundamentally different approaches to hardware and software.

iPhone vs Android: Hardware

In a sense, it’s OK to conflate iPhone hardware and iOS software because Apple makes both. You can’t have one without the other.

Conversely, while every Android phone runs Google software, relatively few Android devices are made by Google. The search giant built Android as an open operating system that any third party phone maker can use.

The result of this is that there are simply far more Android phones than there are iPhones, with Android accounting for around 70 percent of the smartphone market.

This also makes direct comparisons between iPhone and Android quite difficult. Apple makes exclusively premium phones, with even its ‘affordable’ iPhone SE phones essentially being made up of older premium components. They all tend to subscribe to a unified design language, albeit one that tends to be refreshed every three or four years.

Android phones, by contrast, come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from iPhone-rivalling premium phones (aka flagships) to cheap and cheerful budget phones with plastic constructions and running on relatively humble components.

Winner: Android

It’s a numbers game here and Android simply offers much greater diversity and caters to a much larger sector than Apple does, with excellent handsets available for people on all budgets. There’s also the point of design to take into consideration; with so many different manufacturers producing Android phones, you can end up with starkly different styles, giving people a greater breadth of choice for how they want their smartphone to look.