Five years ago Apple released its iconic iPhone, setting the standard and the high bar of quality and ergonomics for all smart phones to follow it. While there were many smart phones before the iPhone such as the Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones, the iPhone changed the rules of the game. Before Apple’s entry into the market, most smart phone usage was defined by access to email, smart calendars and journal applications. While better games were definitely available than on the standard flip phones, these phones were not known to be particularly great at entertainment. In fact, browsing the Internet on these phones was quite a challenge – it was clunky to use the in phone browsers and the websites needed to comply to the wireless markup standards, which were extremely stripped down and mostly unusable text based interfaces to popular web sites. The iPhone was released with a great browser that actually let you browse regular html websites, as well as a two finger sensitive touch screen that made browsing infinitely easier than its early competitors. The popular iPod device was built right into the iPhone along with native access to its popular iTunes market, making the iPhone an excellent entertainment platform as well as productivity and business driven platform.
Arriving quickly on the heels of the iPhone release was Google’s announcement to seriously compete in the mobile device market with the release of its Linux based open source mobile operating system, Android. In many ways, Android was everything that Apple’s iOS, the operating system platform powering the iPhone, was not. Android was released open source and meant to be used and configured by any cell phone manufacturer that wished to partner with them. This means that while Apple had a corner on the market for anyone wishing to purchase an iOS driven device, Android was available on several devices from several cell phone providers. Today, both Apple and Google are in close competition as market leaders and these early design decisions have affected the functionality and type of apps that are available on these devices, and apps are the number one differentiation between these two competitors.
Apple’s decision to keep their development environment and entertainment media such as music and movies close to its chest is definitely seen in its implementation of apps. Getting an app to pass the rigor required to get on the iTunes mobile store is notoriously difficult. Apple’s strict standards have definitely limited the number of apps, and especially free apps, that are available. However, Apple has been around the longest and despite the high standards, they still have the most apps available for any mobile platform. While most of the apps are pay for use, you definitely know you are getting an app that has been tested for your particular phone and is probably going to work without too many glitches. This helps continue to ensure a smooth user experience for Apple users.
Google’s mobile store, now called Google Play, is rapidly growing but still only about a third of the size of Apple’s iTunes store. The difference however is very tangible. While there are fewer applications as a whole on the Android platform, there are more free apps than available for iPhone as about half of all Android apps are free. This means that there are a lot of small developers who can really push the boundaries of streaming media and interesting productivity apps. This lends a feeling of excitement and vigor to the apps on the Android market. Unfortunately, the downside to this is that it can sometimes feel like the wild west, as the Play market is often disorganized and the apps are not always attuned to your particular device since Android is deployed on hundreds of different hardware specs worldwide.
Author Bio: The post is written by Jason Phillips. He is a freelance writer and content builder for many technology sites specially related to iPhone 4S screen protector. His articles are useful as well as genuine and really appreciated by his readers.
Android has a lot more apps than iPhone and the best part is some of them are free and can be downloaded from Google play easily.
I would wish to go with Android and I like their two apps buzz deck and foxy ring apps too much.
Here are more apps and I also travel and social networking apps.
I believe Android has the best apps in industry, they are more flexible and user friendly even a noob can get to it seamlessly. The main defect what i got noticed that it takes much more space then any individual needs in his daily life.
As with Iphone, they are pre defined apps and they are tried and tested by an in house team where they take measures to ensure quality and durability.
Finally it depends on the end user who likes how he shows his appeal using these apps.
Easton
Thanks for your nice comments. I am glad that this information has been of use to you.
Well, since most of the people in my place have Apple products, I guess I could say that the iPhone could have the best apps available, but then again Android does have a good bunch of apps as well.
iPhone has best apps but these days Android is also catching up fast.
Greetings ! this was really good topic, But Android get Google support, & Android has lots of application & its Open source too. and android phone affordable to everyone then iPhones.
Android Apps have been very significant among all of us. Apart from this, I also like using Apps. I love to use Screen Filter and I feel its the best. The best app for streaming music is Pandora.
It’s great to see good information being shared and also to see fresh, creative
ideas that have never been done before.
android and iphone both are best in the market.if computation between them then in some areas android is best and in some areas iphone is best. thank you for sharing this.