Just a small compilation of the most popular misleading news about iPhone that I read or hear lately.
iPhone processor is inferior to Android devices.
Before iPhone 5S, iPhones tend to have processor with lower theoretical clock-speed than flagship Android phones from the same era. However, we can not simply compare processor speed and conclude that one is faster than the other because there are multiple aspects to decide the actual end-user speed experienced by phone owners.
iPhones are made by Apple. One company produces the hardware, software and the integration. All under the same roof, so they have complete control. As the result, they can fully optimize the operating system to fully benefit from its hardware.
Android OS is made by Google. Android phones are NOT made by Google. They are made by various partner brands. So Android OS is designed to be able to run in flexible hardware types. While this sounds good in theory, there is ALWAYS some trade-offs between flexibility and performance. In order to make it runnable in various hardware, Android OS must create a layer to communicate with hardware, more complex than iOS. As result, it costs processor calculation and resources. To compensate this, Android phones usually use faster processors so it can cover the extra calculation needed for the OS. Some Android phones are also loaded with unnecessary programs (usually called bloatwares) that makes things even slower.
To put it simply say an iPhone with processor speed 100 produce user experience 100, an Android device need a processor with 120 speed just to reach the same user experience 100. Or it might even need faster processor to produce user experience 100 if there are many bloatwares.
Expert Android users have the capability of removing those bloatwares or even install a totally custom version of Android OS in their phones to make it faster. But if you’re a novice user who has no idea how to do that, chances are, you are stuck with whatever operating system already installed by the time you get your smartphone.
By the time of this writing, iPhone 5S has the fastest processor in the world compared to all other smartphones (yes even faster than Samsung Galaxy Note 3 when we remove Samsung benchmark cheating feature). So it is the fastest processor, combined with optimized operating system as a result of controlled design under the same company.
iPhone is overpriced.
iPhone is positioned as premium device. Naturally the price is expensive. However, the word “expensive” bears different meaning from “overpriced”.
Android has so many options, you can buy Android devices at various price level, from super cheap (with crappy specs of course), medium, to high-end devices (expensive). Some of the high-end models of Android are even more expensive than some iPhone models.
Some people compares the price of a product vs the cost of building the hardware. Then they were amazed with the super “low” cost of building hardware, and the super “high” price for end users. Well, the cost of a product has a lot of components, and hardware is just ONE of them. We still have the cost of software development, the cost of software testing, the cost of hardware testing, the cost of integration testing, the cost of building the distribution network, the cost of providing after-sales service and repair, the cost of advertising and marketing, and many other aspects. We can’t just exclude them from the price factor and assuming a product is just a mere electronic components put together.
It is also worth to mention that there are 2 different style of pricing: outright price and contract price.
Outright price is more expensive. We pay some money, we get the smartphone, not locked to any operator.
Contract price is cheaper (or even free), but it’s tied to a contract to mobile phone operator (usually 24 months). So we get the phone cheaper, but we are entering legal contract to stay with a mobile operator for the next 24 months and pay certain amount of monthly payment. A lot of people heard about iPhone costs $199 in US and they compare it with outright price in their country, that’s a big mistake.
The number of processor cores is the most important key to tell how fast a phone is.
What is dual cores processor? What is quad cores processor? How they affect performance?
Let’s put it this way. Imagine a small airport has 2 check-in counters. When there are many people who wants to check-in, they have to queue. If they decide to add 2 new counters, the queue will finish faster. However, adding new check in counters will NOT make the required time for each person’s check-in to be faster.
This is the ideal situation of multiple processor cores, and it’s how the general public seems to understand it.
So is an Android phone with quad core faster than an iPhone with dual core? The answer is no. Why? Because to take advantage of the additional processor cores, a third party app must be designed for that. And most Android apps are still optimized for single or dual core processor to make it compatible with low-end devices.
Let us put this into our example of check-in counters in an airport. When an Android phone adds more processor cores, they are actually adding new check-in counters but not for everyone. Those new check-in counters are special counters for people with platinum frequent flyer cards. So ordinary passengers will still have to queue in the old 2 check-in counters. Only few passengers with with platinum frequent flyer cards can take the advantage of the new counters.
So having twice processor cores will NOT make a phone runs 2x faster.
Some Android devices can read memory cards, so they have larger capacity than iPhone.
Having a memory card slot doesn’t make a device have larger capacity. Say an Android device has 16GB internal storage and its user put 16GB memory card to its slot. This does not make the device equal to a device with 32GB internal storage. Why?
One, not all apps can be installed into memory cards. Many apps can only be installed in internal storage.
Two, many Android apps have limited capability to deal with files stored in memory cards.
If you just need to store some large-sized movies, it might still be ok. But if you need the extra space to store more apps or to store some app-specific files, memory cards will have limited functions compared to internal storage.
Upgrade your iPhone to iOS 7 and your phone will become waterproof.
Now this is a very stupid false rumor, and sadly there are people who actually fell for it.
There are NO software upgrade that will make your hardware capable of doing something that previously not possible because of hardware limitation. Waterproofing is a hardware feature, not a software. And no software will EVER add this feature.
Upgrade your iPhone to iOS 7 and AirDrop feature will make your phone unbreakable.
Just like the previous section, no software update will ever change something that previously not possible because of hardware limitation. If the hardware previously will break when we drop it, it will STILL break no matter what OS or what software we install. AirDrop feature is a feature to drop FILES (transferring files) between iPhones over the air. Not a feature about dropping the phone. Amazingly, some people also fell for this prank. Sigh, maybe this is why they call it “smartphone”. Because it’s smarter than some of its users.
Fingerprint security in iPhone is faulty because it’s breakable.
Fact: from the very nature of its technology, fingerprint security is ALWAYS breakable. This applies to any brand’s scanner, not just Apple. People with sufficient skill and correct tools will be able to do something to bypass it. The question now, why would you store national-security level top-secret data (if any) in your mobile phone? Apple Touch ID using fingerprint was never taunted as “high security” better than passcodes. It was offered as a security better than having NO PASSCODE. Because half of smartphone users choose not to have any passcode (or gesture code in Android) because they feel it’s too much trouble to enter the passcode (or the gesture pattern) everytime they want to use the phone. Touch ID’s fingerprint is offered for CONVENIENCE. Remember that if someone doesn’t use the iPhone for 48 hours, or if the phone just been restarted, he can’t use fingerprint for the next use, passcode must be entered. This clearly shows that passcode is considered a higher level security.
iPhone is worse than Android because Android is open source and iOS is not.
Android is an open source OS. iOS is not open-source. But what does this mean? A lot of people take the word “open” for granted without even knowing how it will affect the product on their hands. They simply assume “open” is better.
An open-source OS means, after being released by its original makers (Google), the source-code of that OS is made available for public so they can use and modify it themselves and create their own custom version of Android operating system. If you have decent skill and knowledge to do this, it might be interesting to do so.
If you have the technical skill to modify an operating system, Android should be your choice. If you’re an average user, both operating systems can be chosen. But if you’re just an average user trying to get a smartphone to use out-of-the-box, this openness will bring you no difference.
iPhone is worse than Android because Android app ecosystem is open and Apple AppStore is controlled.
Most people just assume that being “open” is good and being controlled is bad, many of them actually have no idea how openness (in this context) will affect them.
Open ecosystem means everyone can submit any app in the store. ANY app. That includes apps with malware infections, fake apps that pretends to be something else, fake apps to steal our passwords and credit card numbers, anything. Few weeks ago when Blackberry was about to launch official BBM app for Android and iPhone, there are hundreds of apps in Google Play pretending to be “the official app” from Blackberry. Apple has controlled app ecosystem, means every app must pass some testing procedures from Apple. When a developer wants to submit an app for Apple AppStore, he/she needs to provide valid identity, either as individual or as company. This is to make sure that an app can’t pretend to be from someone else.
In Google Play, even an ordinary people can submit app pretending to be from “Blackberry Official” or “RIM Official”. In AppStore, they can’t do that because they will have to submit a proof that they have sufficient right to use such identity.
No one buys iPhone anymore, Apple is doomed.
The fact is, iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C is sold more than 9 million unit only on the FIRST 3 DAYS of availability. Every iPhone model is sold more units than every individual Android phone model, even compared to Samsung’s flagship phones.
Speaking about that, Android is indeed the #1 most used mobile OS in the world today. How come? Because Android has a LOT of different models at different price range. When they compare the total amount of sold phones between all iPhones and all Android phones, of course Android’s number will be bigger, because it includes low-end and mid-end devices with cheaper price. In every market in history, cheaper products always sells more than premium products. Counting the number of sold Jaguar cars will surely be lower than the total number of sold Toyota cars. Yes Toyota also have high-end cars, but they have low-end and mid-end models, considerably cheaper.
Apple can only do incremental upgrade now.
Well, every upgrade of technology product IS incremental, what do they actually expect? With or without “innovation” feature, it’s still incremental since the new model is still basically a newer and better version of the old one. Improvement could happen in various aspects, from processor speed, capacity, display, or anything. Adding new features doesn’t make an upgrade to become “not-incremental”, because the new model is still essentially do similar things from the old one, plus some improvements, still the same concept of incremental upgrade. Seems like people has taken a new definition of “incremental upgrade”. Any upgrade that does not include larger screen or some gimmick features is considered “incremental” now. And here I thought we’re smarter than those marketing people.
Take a look at some other products. Samsung first released a Galaxy Note with S-pen, the pen was almost unusable due to the annoying lag and some issues on user experience. In the next iteration of Note 2, they did INCREMENTAL UPGRADE by slightly improving the pen’s quality and usability, increasing processor speed and other specs. In the following model of Note 3, they did another INCREMENTAL UPGRADE by improving the pen even further, increasing processor speed and other specs again. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s how a new model is SUPPOSED to be.
Another example, just have a look on almost all ultrabook laptops. Every new model is an incremental improvement from the previous model. Still the usual spec improvements. Thinner and lighter models are also just another example of incremental upgrade.
iPhone is not a perfect phone, far from it. Android is also not a bad OS, not a perfect one either. I’d like to think both OS has their own markets and people should choose them based on their needs, taste and price constraint.
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