iOS 5 or Android Ice Cream Sandwich Debate
Well Apple dished the dirt on the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 yesterday and we now know iOS 5 will offer the iPhone faithful 200 plus “new” features including the Siri Voice Assistant, but how will iOS 5 stand up against the soon to be revealed next generation Android operating system, Android Ice Cream Sandwich?
We now know that iOS 5 will be released in about a week, and delivers Airplay mirroring for the Apple iPad 2 and iPhone 4S, WiFi sync, Notification Center, iMessage, Newsstand, reminders, iCloud integration, FaceTime over 3G, and probably the biggest attraction that Siri Voice Assistant, and of course many more.
However, the Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2011 “Google Episode” event kicks off on the 11th of this month, a day before iOS 5 is due release to the iPhone masses, and we should hear more about the upcoming Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS and hopefully an announcement of the Samsung Nexus Prime.
We’ve already been treated to the systems application list for Android Ice Cream Sandwich, which you can view (here) and word has it ISC will feature such stuff as an open accessory API, Cloud music, NFC, gaming improvements, resizable widgets, face detection, possibly face recognition to unlock phones, and of course the OS being compatible with both Android smartphones and tablets, although one does have to say that these features have not yet been confirmed.
We recently ran a poll asking whether people would prefer Android Ice Cream sandwich or iOS 5 the result of which was somewhat overwhelming coming strongly down on the side of ICS.
So does Android Ice Cream Sandwich stand up to what iOS 5 offers? That question will hopefully be answered come the 11th of the month. Bet we’d love to know what our readers think, do you think ICS will be the number one operating system out there feature wise or do you feel iOS 5 has it all and can’t be beat?
Feel free to kick off this debate by posting your opinions to our comments area below. If you have enjoyed this Phones Review article feel free to add me your circles on Google+ and I will of course add you back.
Comments
47 thoughts on “iOS 5 or Android Ice Cream Sandwich Debate”
The features of iOS 5 pale in comparison to Android Gingerbread and therefore can’t be compared to ICS. Therefore there’s no contest here. ICS wins.
agree
What features are those exactly?
I like having apps so IOS 5 wins hands down.
Hahahaha, that makes no sense. Android has tons of apps.
theres no way ios 5 wins coz the features that ios 5 is proudly promising have been in android for ages already ..
take ur siri for example. I use android and have been able to send texts or emails  get directions  and make calls for ages using google voice action in gingerbread, every feature apple has announced is copied from android take ur  new notifications
talking abt apps we’ve got enough apps and most of them are free rather than paid versions of  the same appsÂ
android all the way.
Please do research before you speak..Siri is a lot more advanced than simple voice -to- text. Go ahead…read about it..I dare ya. Or you prolly don’t want to because you will hang ur head with envy…like most you blind anything not android sucks fanboys do.
Never heard of vlingo? Look it up, I dare you. Face it, apple is playing catch up.
Siri argument aside. Automation with apps like tasker, llama, automateit
and others, truly eclipse ios5 and take android OS to a much higher
level, muck like what Sam and my other fellow droiders are have been
trying to emphasize.
Can’t wait for ICS.
p.s i bet the apple fan boys don’t have a clue what i am talking about.
Samsung GT-I9100
MERRRR APPPPSSSSS!!!! Gimme a break, iFanboy….that APPPPSSSSS argument is old, tired, and sooooo 2010……The reality is the Android Market is JUST as capable of delivering the apps you want and need, and often the apps are much much cheaper/free…………..
Android, IOS is not an update, its meerly apple playing catch- up with google.
Icloud, Drop down message center, faceTime over 3g… these are all features we have had for a while now… If you diagree, dwnld dropbox (icloud), check your unread messages in your notifactions drop down, I have been able to “faceTime” over 3g since I bought my Evo, 4g too which is BETTER.
Nd Puzzle puck, The android market as over 200000 apps currently on the market, most of them being free (not only is there many apps, most of them are actually useful apps, unlike a simple web shell… But since your apps are sooo precious, have fun paying for it.
I’m a little confused. Are you saying that iCloud is like Dropbox? An app that has been on iOS and utilized on both PC’s and Macs, not to mention via a web browser for a long time? I don’t think they are the same in many respects. Are you saying you can “Face Time” via Gtalk or a 3rd party app? You can do that on iOS, as well. You are definitely right about paying for apps… that are robust, actually work, and are very useful. 4G data speeds would be nice, but why do most of my Android-using buddies have it turned off? Battery life an issue?
A few things I will give to you… iOS needed to revamp their notification system, or lack there of. NFC would have been killer! Other countries have been using a similar implementation for some time now. I would really like to see how ICS looks compared to what’s out right now. Other than that, I’m not that impressed with Android. Some of that may be due to the many Motoblur, SenseUI, or TouchWiz bloatware out there.
iOS5 has my vote… for now.
Your friends probably turn it off when it’s not in use, and back on when they are browsing…..it’s called managing your battery……I did it all the time with my iPhones (Turned off wifi, 3g, etc. while not in use). Please don’t talk about battery life, ALL smartphones have shite battery life….the nice thing about android phones is I can pop off the back and have a brand new fully charged battery in there in under 15 seconds…..can I do that on an iPhone? Not impressed with android…..OK you must be one of those people that like staring at rows and rows of icons for their homescreen……I on the other hand like rocking multiple widgets that let me access everything/anything I want/need on my phone without ever having to leave the homescreen, and all with a 3d interface to boot. As I have said many times, the iPhone is a *great* piece of hardware, its simply the OS that is holding it WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY back….not just a little back, but WAYYYYY back. Apple has been playing catchup since late 2009, and they are only falling further and further behind…..when you have to tout “ZOMG TWITTER INTEGRATION!!!” as one of the TWO HUNDREDD NEW FEATURES iOS brings, you know you are in trouble……The only thing keeping apple alive is their legions of iFanboys, and even those sheep are starting to grow a brain and realise the grass really is greener on the other side….
Nobody cares about twitter so stop using it as an argument
ios 5 supposedly has 200 plus updates….
and they are all copying android or useless
If apple let other companies use there software to build a smartphone. I think iOS would be better and more popular. Android has phones coming out every month but apple has one every year. Or apple has to build many iPhones a year to make iPhone more popular. I like iOS but I don’t know if I like android because I have never used it. But ICS look cool but I don’t know if I want a phone that big.
are you kidding me? you dont like ICS because the phone is too big? There are hundreds of android phones, and hundreds more on their way that will support ICS. Take your pick! There will be one that is ‘not too big’, just for you 🙂 Also, the sad reality is, iOS5 is nothing more than Android 1.6…..iMessage is simply an apple branded ‘whatsapp’ style messenger, ‘twitter’ integration…gimme a break, any app I install in android is fully integrated into the OS…and who even uses twitter aside from teenage girls anyways? ‘Siri voice assistant’ *YAWN* I’ve been rocking android voice activation for almost 2 years now…..and the notification bar? That’s been one of the cornerstones of android OS for like…..ever…….The iPhone is a great piece of hardware, but that ‘OS’ is simply lacking, plain and simple. Some people like to look at rows and rows of icons, personally, I can always just open my app drawer if I want to see that….
Our features are more polished so even if android had them earlier they aren’t as good as apple’s. And please Siri is a little more advanced that just simple voice activation…nothing comes close to Siri right now. And even with all these features android has had for so long, it’s clunky, unreliable system has and will always hold it back. Android’s opearting system just looks ugly and i kinda wish it didn’t cuz even though i love apple, i think bigger screens are cool. I think most peoples mentalities are bigger is better. But a bigger screen as an advantage is not enough b/c the risks of switching to android is complicated system, clunky at times, terrible app store (don’t tell me it’s growing everyday…never will be as good as apple), and the system itself just looks ugly. I dont care how many ways i customize the look it, it still looks disorganized and going into to simple things like settings is even disorganized. Im an attention to detail person and maybe thats why i speak much more highly of apple.
Jared,
If you are “an attention to detail person”, please learn to spell correctly, and how to correctly compose a sentence. Reading your posts are very difficult.
It is obvious to me, and likely others, on here that you likely have no technical background. While the iPhone is a great device, and highly polished, it is not on par with the Android OS technically or for the level of customization.
Apple was very smart and they created a phone that is easy to use for the masses. Its simplistic UI appeals to a broad group of the population and they have been extremely successful. They also deserve a great deal of credit for kicking off the whole smart phone revolution.Â
Others had tried with limited success before the first iPhone, but iPhone broke open the market. Google and others owe much of their success to Apple.
I liked iOS 5 better when it was Android 1.6……..
Don’t matter android is unreliable…a bunch of phones cuz they malfunction a new OS every 8 months cuz they can’t get it right…utter foolishness after 4 yeasts of android I’m tired iPhone 4s come Friday
What I find amazing with the Iphone haters is that they have almost certainly never done a comparison.. I can happily accept Android has many features and gets many features before Iphone, but they are generally slow, cluncky and frustratingly poor.. So much so there are new android based phones coming out every 5 minutes to try and get it right.. it’s the simplicity and smoothness of iphone that make it so far beyond any android phone out there… I am happy to keep looking for an iphone rival but as yet they are all poor versions.. maybe nexus has a better chance but so far Iphone all the way… BTW Iam not a huge apple fan but iphone and ipad are just that much better.
Sigh….the problem with iFanboys is the huge chip on their shoulder. If anybody talks bad about the iPhone they are instantly HATERS. I like technology, and I *love* smartphones, I think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread, literally. I was an early adopter of cel phones, and then got bored of them and went from 2004-2008 with no phone because there was really no point to them and they had gotten pretty boring. It wasn’t until the iPhone 2g came out that I got back into them, because smartphones are awesome! And so was that iPhone. I am always the first to say the iPhone is a great piece of hardware, and the OS was pretty damn good at one time too, but the market has changed dramatically and smartphones have come a LONNNNNNG way since then. Sure I can bust out a 286 PC running DOS and say ‘Its smooth and simple, I love it!’ and I would be right, but come on now….. I have purchased, owned and used every single iPhone from the original to the 4, but I am definitely putting a ‘PASS’ on this 4s, which is clearly just another attempt to squeeze more money from the cash cow that is the uninformed, biased, iFanboy fanbase. iFanboys talk like the iPhone is the BEEEEESSSST!!!! phone ever, and that nothing is even close to it. It made me embarrassed to pull out my iPhone 4 in public because I didn’t want to be lumped in with the legions of sheep. What is the BEEEEESSSSST is competition and choice. If there was only Android, it would be lame. Same with only WP7, Symbian, iOS, etc. Choice drives technology forward, and keeps the goods coming. Right now, Android is the most advanced smartphone OS available bar none, and is *clearly* superior to the iOS offerings. In the future that *will* change, history has shown us that, but for now I am enjoying the ride. You are right, iOS is simple, and that is good for the mainstream, but it is nowhere near the top dog position it once held so proudly. If Apple had released an iPhone 5 with a bunch of cool new stuff, and a mind blowing new OS, you can bet your bottom dollar I would have bought one and played around with it. I love technology, and I change smartphones every 2-3 months because there’s always something new and exciting around the corner. The sad truth is nothing really new and exciting has come from Apple since the iPhone 3g, and now they are simply adding gimmicks and playing catchup to the android offerings. The white iPhone4 fiasco and now this iPhone 4s are blatant examples of that 🙁
Android is the most advanced operating system…please dont make me laugh. You can argue that some phones running android have better specs but please dont ever say that android’s operating system even comes close to apple’s iOS5. iOS5 will still even be better than that stupid ice cream sandwich. Im sorry but google’s names for their android updates are just stupid. Its like android should be for little kids.
Android is actually a lot more free to use. You say Android is for little kids, but is that why the Apple Iphone is no more complex then putting icons on the screen? How hard is that to learn and mess with. Once you have full knowledge on how to use a Android it surpasses the Iphone by far. Customization is 100x better, As well as your freedom to install any app that you want. I seen multiple people switch over from Iphone to Android. All of them are happy with their choice.
i aint switching… im comparing both and still love my iphone 4 over me new galaxy s2
You’re an idiot.
nope not as dumb as the various mobile device running the android os, and guess what hope you know that you need different version of apps to run on each device…
now thats boringÂ
Android should please the fragmentation issue…. (cos i dont want to regret buying my galaxy s2)
and as I have said many many many times before to iFanboys is you *clearly* haven’t ever even touched a top of the line android phone. Again going back to my previous argument, the beauty of Android is CHOICE. ‘Android’ doesn’t release a new phone every 5 minutes, there are multiple manufacturers releasing a phone every 5 minutes that support the Android OS because the market needs choice. Not everybody wants a 500+ dollar phone, and for them they can get one of the entry level android phones that are a bit slower and admittedly ‘not as smooth’, but for them the phone is perfect and only costs less than 200 dollars. The high end Android phones are butter smooth and simply beautiful to boot. There is no comparison to the iPhone. It is in fact the opposite of what you said and iFanboys are simply too close minded to make any comparison to other phones and always say the same things. “Android has features, but its not as smooth as the iPhone. My iPhone is smooth and simple”. OK your moms 200 dollar android phone most certainly is not as smooth as your 600-800 dollar iPhone, but is that *really* a fair comparison?Â
Dumbest reply I’ve ever seen. Good for you that you have choice and pick between 500 phones that work terribly on android. Point is android is complicated and its cool that its a little more customizable but honestly if you have crappy apps why would u ever want to use your phone. Apple will continue to blow android away. Android can win the spec war all day, but their phones will never run as good as apple and apple will always be ahead of the pack with manufacturers and companies making apps for them first. And apple’s operating system will always run better. Sure google was first to come out with some features, but they dont work as well as when apple catches up and refines that feature. Android just has no class, its erratic and doesnt pay attention to detail. So if the only thing you can come up with about what makes android better is that you can get phones for cheap cuz android is on 5 million devices (sarcasm) or b/c android gives you a bigger screen size that doesnt really make a better phone. I have played with samsung galaxy SII constantly and the Droid bionic and yeah sure they run decently as fast as apple but this whole speed argument is just stupid. I just want my phone to be able to do cool things with many apps and for it to look polished and run smoothly. So if ur android has a 1.8GHz processor, good for you, but it still won’t run as smooth as apple. Still won’t get to play awesome games like apple offers. Android is the windows of smartphones…you can put all the best specs in the world but it will still run clunky and navigating around the system isnt as good as apple. Honestly i think people hate apple cuz it is so simple..to some techies i think simple means not as good. Apple’s better, but you wanna live in denial go ahead. I’m neutral…and after trying android and apple its pretty easy to see apple dominates. And well Siri is pretty damn cool. And i rather as a consumer pay $99 for an iPhone4 right now than pay some some crappy android device that comes free…people waste too much money with this android junk b/c they either hate apple, didnt have a choice to have apple before, or they are misinformed. If you are gonna spend ur hard earned money, waste it on something that gives you potential. No matter what apple phone u get, u know u will be at the top. There are only a couple android phones these days that are even worth getting and its pretty annoying that they are constantly coming out with new phones every month.Â
You have a very Biased opinionÂ
You’re an idiot. Enjoy your kiddie iPhone….
Also way to directly quote overlord Steve Jobs with the “X has no class”…yeah I saw that documentary in 1996 too….welcome to the 21st century
“Â I just want my phone to be able to do cool things with many apps and for it to look polished and run smoothly. ”
Android has just as many apps as Apple. Sure the number may be higher in the ‘Apple App Store’, but it’s just 34i574986754 versions of the same damn app. Also it doesn’t look polished at all, it’s the equivalent of DOS. A bunch of rows of icons, yay. Android can look ANY way you want, and it runs smoothly…so remind me again why you love the iPhone so much? Oh yeah, sheep….
now you talk about apps being better on the android than the iphone, men you are so wrong, every app is made on the iphone first before been ported down to an android os specifically made for a device…
now thats boring….
ive used both OSes and the apps on the android device is way way slow. i still dont get why people compare the iphone 4 with a galaxy s2 and talk about app speed…
jeez compare the iphone 4 with the galaxy s or the htc desire (best mobile device 2010, thanks to the iphone 4 antenna issues), both device have almost the same hardware config… and lets see how smooth the apps on the android enabled device will run….
the android os will do fine no doubt, but for now, fragmentation should be eliminated and they should focus on getting the users attention and not trying to out wit apple
i agree with Nothstein, though i never bought an iphone and consider my self a die-hard fan of android. That doesnt mean iphones are poor or androids are better…. been to apple store many a times, i dont know some how i cant buy them, how much i appreciate their look.. a sense of freedom or Choice that drags me to buy androids. i used high end androids like nexus,desire HD, low end like charm and moderately priced milestone and defy.. i love them all … apple users and android users are little different, droid guys like flashing roms, and trouble shooting. Apple guys prefer sleek,dont bother whats inside phones. one is honest other is smart.. nothing wrong being themselves right 😉
I Phones are so cool that’s why apple have just screwd up nearly 5 million users handsets with there latest IOS5 realese. And I wonder how many muppets will be upset when thay go out and buy there new Iphone 4GS. To be screwed over by Mac when they realese there new Iphone 5 in 6 months
Hi Dave, you seem to be biased with the release of IOS 5, if you have a factory unlocked iphone, an OS update wont screw your phone….
users with issues are does who got a carrier locked iphone and depend on software or hardware unlock tools to use them with any carrier. So please get your facts right.
i have an iphone 4 and a samsung galaxy s2, and the galxay s2 with its superior hardware still lags behind my iphone 4.
WIN said it all apple has the users mind in their head but google has apple in their brains and they forget to please the users…. i wont waste my money on a device ran by a fragmented OS…. men thats waste of money.
i read once in a post stating that android os has 43.3% of the mobile market share and IOS has 7.9%, to explain that… android os is deployed on different mobile phones manufacturers, while the ios is on all of APPLES mobile device… if we combine apples market share, the android device is way way way behind.
so to round is up google should forget apple and make a better OS with the users in mind….. i pray the ICS woos me, cos if it doesnt… ima smash me galaxy s2 on the floor…..
Your Galaxy S2 lags because it doesn’t have the same optimizations as a phone with ICS. If you look up speed tests and benchmarks, you can see that the Galaxy Nexus is first, with double the power as a Galaxy S2, even though they have about the same power, both with 1.2gHz dual core CPUs.
the battle between IOS and Android is not really a battle because
both side try to appease to different type of people. Apple is more of
“we try to make it as easy as possible” where is Android is “it’s your
phone, you have the right to do whatever you what with it.
Neither
the Android or Apple users are dumb or smarter than the other. It just
comes down to what you need to do with the phone. The reason that Iphone
tends to sell like hot cakes, is because it’s visually appealing. The
human mind focus on this factor first before it looks under the
hood.This is just like when you meet someone you like. Point being, the
attractiveness of an item pulls you in for more. No one wants to pay
$300 for plastic looking device. The Android makers are starting to
realize that.Â
I wasted 10 minutes of my life reading the comments  🙁
Apple is just adding features that Android already has and Android is way more customizable than iOS so in sense Android is and since it was created has been greater than iOS
Every android fan keeps saying IOS 5 major update was the notification centre and siri.
first of all we had a better of notification centre if you jailbreak your iphone and download any of the notification tweak you want on cydia….
two we had voice activation way back, before SIRI came over and redefined it….
So what else… you keep saying IOS is lifting things from the ANDROID system, but i keep saying APPLE does em better way over ….
the android os needs to get things done right….. when they do them right ima put me thumbs up for it.
ICS please bring me more hope or else….. APPLE will always win…
I really like Apple computers, I have an older Mac, and a Hack…that mostly runs the Leopard, and just sporadically Windows, when there is no app for Mac. I like the fact that the computer just works and I don’t have to wipe the hdd weekly because of trojans, etc…
However, I enabled the root access and there were times when I had to kill an app manually because it was hanging.
I assume there might be cases on Iphone when an app just hangs, there is no such thing as the perfect phone, or computer!
While you might be able to reboot your precious Iphone, in a rooted Android (that’s why I got it to tinker with it), you get just kill that process in the terminal.
Somebody was saying “Android is the Windows of phones” in a previous post. They are both actually Unix based FYI. I always liked the freedom of Linux/Unix vs the constrains of other OS.Â
This is true with the phones, too. Not all people like to fool around with their devices, though.
Also, I don’t think Android is perfect either, I actually came from a Nokia phone which I absolutely loved, and where everything worked just fine: there was a text to speech built in, I could add and release parties during a call, which doesn’t work on Android, or maybe just on Verizon.Â
I am not sure why people fight over this issue all the time. The best phone is the one that suits your needs, period. If I can can do it with both phones, then I want the one where I am in control to do whatever I want, and this is Android. Also, I want a removable battery, that’s my choice. Then I can enable/disable 4G whenever I want. Uploading files with 483K/sec from the phone over 4G is just sweet! I did not like the fact that Apple didn’t offer a choice! Batteries get bad, I just want to be able to change it without opening the entire phone! That’s just plain stupid, sorry. That’s my personal point of view, some people might not care, they just like the fact it’s cool, etc.
this debete is like egg come first or chicken.
becasue both are best at their top.
hard to decide
iOS 5 is not as good as iCS in my prime..
iOS is not as good as android but android is a bit hard to get used to…
I had the Motorola Droid Razr MAXX for 2 weeks. The phone was good enough, I guess. The battery life was as good as a 3G phone on 4G. This was impressive. Then I tried to type on it. The clunky auto correct kept mistyping everything. I really just want something to correct my errors in real time. Maybe that makes me stupid, I don’t know. It’s just a convenience I would enjoy. The Droid did some amazing things, it mirrored HDMI perfectly. I could watch Netflix straight from my phone. The surfing was faster and the app store had a great wild wild west feel to it.
I had a Droid2 for 1 and a half years. The Droid2 kept breaking on me. I went through a Droid1 and 2. I did like the QWERTY keyboard and it did a reasonably good job.Â
The typing, texting and general speed of the Android OS is lacking. The phone crashes and I have to force reset it every time it crashes. That usually requires me to pull the Battery. Or do a hard reset from the hole in the back of the Razr. The hardware under the hood of the Razr Maxx is impressive at 1.2Â GHz and that 1 GB of RAM sounds sweet.Then I got the Iphone:I Â had a devil of a time typing on the Droid. On the Iphone I sped through text documents like a hot knife through butter. Where there was lag and utter mayhem with my Android.
The reality of the Droid Market is that they don’t charge for Apps. This is good, but there’s a real problem with paying the developers. The Applestore may not give much of a percentage to the developers, but there’s less pirating and  for the most part. Developers get paid more than on the Android.Â
Games are more fun. I actually perferred the smaller screen. Despite not having the raw hardware the Droid has. The phone is speedier, it doesn’t crash either. That’s not to say that the RAM doesn’t run low on IOS causing it to slow down and make the App seem like it’s lagging and crashing. A simple double click to the button on the bottom tends to  bring up a menu at the bottom of the screen so that programs can be terminated. This includes IOS’s built in features like SIRI and Safari. Android does not allow this. Causing App killers to do less of an efficient job.
Even though there are some great Cameras on the Android end. The Iphone has one of the best point and shoots available. They really always had the best camera.
I totally hope that ICS makes the Droid into a non-fragmented powerhouse. Due to my 2 year contract I’ll have to fiddle with my friends’s phones and make my own decisions. Until then I’m going to miss free navigation and the wide selection of features Android offers. IOS isn’t a slouch either. What it makes up for in lack of certain useful features. The Android falls short in the ease of use department. so the choice for ease of use is clear. Iphone…I also like Android BTW but the quality control wins the race. I’m very happy with my iPhone.
PS: Not to mention iTunes…Love it.