Apple led the smartphone market when the launched the iPhone in 2007, Steve introduced the amazing combination of a touchscreen based mobile phone, an iPod, and an Internet communications device.
The release of Google’s Android had huge influence in the growth of the smartphone market. Android provided an open source and its associated community and also a readily available platform.
During the last decade smartphones have become heavily commoditised and today, both Apple's iOS and Google's Android are robust and mature. Just like desktops and laptops before them the smartphone has now become a commodity, there is no significant innovation, there are small incremental changes from year to year.
I have always owned a current model iPhone for the last 9 years and have previously considered jumping ship to Android but moving from the Apple ecosystem to Android seemed too much work for similar cost.
This year I finally switched from iOS to Android, I moved to Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus. My wife uses the iPhone X and I use Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus. I have spent significant time over the Christmas holidays directly comparing the two leading smartphones. After much deliberation the Samsung S8 Plus is the better phone for me irrespective of price.
1. Hardware - Samsung has advantages:
- Higher screen to body ratio - S8: 83.6%, S8+: 84%, iPhone X: 82.9%
- Cleaner design. symmetry is so so important in design and iPhone X notch wrecks an otherwise beautiful design
- Better screen - S8: 570 ppi, S8+: 529 ppi, iPhone X: 458 ppi
- Great f1.7 camera, better low light photos
- Better waterproofing - S8/S8+: IP68, iPhone X: IP67
- Hardware for payments - (NFC)
- Headphone jack
- microSD expansion - I bought 128GB for photos/videos for $40 (Apple charges additional AU$250 for 192GB upgrade on iPhone X)
- Samsung DEX - turns smartphone into full desktop PC
All popular apps are available on both iOS and Android platforms. Furthermore Android has following advantages:
- Android allows user to customise default apps for mail, messages, browser.
- Email has choice of Samsung, Gmail, Microsoft Outlook and many others
- Browser has choice of Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Samsung, Brave and many other
- The default Samsung camera app has auto mode by default which is very similar to iOS iPhone camera app, yet it also has Pro mode which allows manual controls including: ISO, white balance, shutter speed, exposure compensation, manual focus, photo size
- I choose the following: Chrome for browser, Samsung Camera, Gmail for email, Google Calendar, Google Drive for cloud files, Google Assistant for virtual assistant, Spotify for music, Netflix for movies/TV, Pocket cast for podcasts, Android Pay for payments, Gboard for keyboard, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Find my Device. These applications provide great user experience easily matching or surpassing applications on iOS based iPhone.
Google cloud services (search, virtual assistant, mail, calendar, drive, maps, video, payments, youtube) are better than Apple's cloud services. Android has better integration with Google cloud services than Apple's iOS. To me that is the key differentiator between the two smartphone operating systems.
Furthermore I can not see Apple challenging Google with cloud services as Google have much deeper pool of cloud talent and over a decade more massive scale cloud experience.
4. Price
I bought my Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus, 64GB on sale at Officeworks for AU$830, my wife's iPhone X 64GB was AU$1,579 at the Apple store. Two things to note:
- Samsung S8+ is almost half the price of iPhone X, Samsung S8 is even lower cost
- Samsung phones are frequently on sale, Apple rarely offers discounts
Switching from iOS based iPhone to Android has a learning curve, it is a little akin to switching from Mac to Windows or vice versa, it takes time to learn. I have to admit switching complete ecosystems from Apple's iOS to Android is painful as you have to change everything from one ecosystem to another and reprogram your brain for Android. I also had to repurchase apps that I previously owned on iOS. I kept using my iPhone until everything was working perfectly, I was in no rush to change and took my time to explore Android. The whole process took me about two weeks to complete the switch.
6. Where Apple iPhone X is still superior
- Staying with iPhone is easy: No learning curve. no need to switch ecosystem and learn Android
- On Android it no longer possible to use Facetime, yet many other good alternatives including Facebook messenger, Google Hangouts, Skype. Same applies to Apple photo sharing, yet there are many good good alternatives including Google Photos and Facebook.
- Face unlock is better on iPhone than Samsung S8/S8+, yet Samsung still retains fingerprint sensor that works great
- Dual camera: f1.8 (wide-angle) and f/2.4 (telephoto). Samsung S8/S8+ only has f1.7
- Better video: 4K @ 60fps. Samsung Samsung S8/S8+ only has 4K @ 30fps.
- Stereo speakers
Apple shares drop after report on weak iPhone X demand:
- iPhone 3G (2008) - $499
- iPhone 3GS (2009) - $499
- iPhone 4 (2010) - $549
- iPhone 4S (2011) - $649
- iPhone 5 (2012) - $649
- iPhone 5C (2013) - $549
- iPhone 5S (2013) - $649
- iPhone 6 (2014) - $649
- iPhone 6 Plus (2014) - $749
- iPhone 6S (2015) - $649
- iPhone 6S Plus (2015) - $749
- iPhone SE (2016) - $399
- iPhone 7 (2016) - $649
- iPhone 7 Plus (2016) - $769
- iPhone 8 (2017) - $699
- iPhone 8 Plus (2017) - $799
- iPhone X (2017) - $999
Here is breakdown of BOM for both Apple iPhone X and Samsung S8:
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