Technology

What about it is better? Honest question, from someone who uses both.

So yeah, on Android you can do a little more with home screen customisation. It used to be a lot more — I can't believe it took Apple how many years to figure out how to place an icon to the right of or below an open space? It's closer now, they both steal from each other, but you can do a lot more. My Android phone is partly a cosplay prop: it's a real-life NookPhone, from Animal Crossing. My icons are huge, they're the ones from the game, but they open real apps, and they're in a 3x3 grid. Definitely can't do that on iOS. But I don't need that on my daily driver. And many people say — and I'm inclined to agree — that when an app is on both, it's better on iOS due to fewer hardware configurations to support.

Also, we have Delta, the emulator that backs everything up to, ironically, Google Drive. So I can show you this app on my iPhone. I can also AirDrop you any game I have. Long press, share, AirDrop, find your iPhone, you open it with the same app, you got it now. Super easy. But I can also uninstall the app, it removes all the files and whatnot. I can go into Files, double check all my games are gone. Saves, all of it. Then I reinstall it. Nothing... but as soon as I sign into Google Drive, it re-downloads everything. I just wish the emulator ran on the Mac, too — I'd have cross-device sync. Also, the emulator is Nintendo only, no PlayStation, no Sega, nothing like that.

And then the privacy issue. I think it's wild so few people care about their private information being sold. Then again, Facebook, TikTok, and others are huge. So I might be the outlier caring about that. But I still do.

Actually, the first phone to do a lot of things was actually an Android — good and bad! The first fingerprint reader, I think may have been the Motorola Bionic? But it was like an electric razor, it had these things you roll your finger across. It was weird. Not like what we have now. Likewise, I'm pretty sure an Android phone was the first one to pull the headphone jack. It was just because Apple did it right when they brought out the AirPods that people cried foul (rightly so). Memory card? Apple never supported them (they're too slow), and Android phones famously didn't support them... I think the Nexus phones? Pixel too. I don't think any Google-branded phone had a memory card slot.

More expensive does include the foldables, and you can't say they don't count because they exist. I wouldn't count the diamond-crusted Android phones, those are super limited edition. But anyone can go buy a fold or a flip, so they have to be considered. Right now the top iPhone costs $2000 in the US. It's a 2TB iPhone 17 Pro Max. Android gets higher, albeit with folds, but it does get higher, and the performance isn't any better.

As far as Samsung specifically: the chip in the Galaxy S25 is faster than the one in the iPhone 16 Pro/Max, but it also loses more power when it throttles for getting too hot. That really only means anything in high-end gaming, though. For day-to-day usage the Samsung will clock higher. It's only going to get 3-4 years of support though, if that, and they still sell your private information. You can't even use Samsung Health without agreeing to let them sell your private medical data (whatever you put in it). So no, it can't do everything an iPhone can do. It can't keep your medical information private, which is enshrined in law in many countries, but if you agree to let them sell it, that goes out the window. Why would you give that up when you don't have to?

1. You got me there. I can probably get a gently used iPhone from a generation or two back and maybe get down to $300, but I dunno about $200. You're 100% right on that one, and more to the point, mid-range Android isn't nearly as bad as it used to be. One of the biggest secrets in mobile is that performance has plateaued.

2. You can only block ads OS-wide on Android if you're rooted. AdAway (and I suppose others like it) edit the HOSTS file which trumps DNS. DNS is what iPhone users use, and what unrooted Android users use. The problem with DNS isn't that it doesn't work — it does — it's that bad actors can tunnel around it. So Google, great example, the app I mean, has its own DNS. They have various reasons but what it boils down to is "we can tunnel around your ad blocker." They definitely do this on iOS. They probably do it on Android. But editing HOSTS can beat that. And no, I don't get ads on YouTube, either — but I do not use the app. You can, if you're on Android and you're rooted and you have a good HOSTS file. I can block YouTube ads with Safari and uBlock Origin (yeah, we got it now) but it's just DNS. I will concede that the best way to browse on a phone is Firefox for Android with uBlock Origin. Us iPhone users wish we had that. We don't. But we can get close. Really, the only ads I see are in the App Store. It's become a cesspool of shit.

3. I don't sail on my phone. I've tried, a few things don't work. I have computers for that. I have a good/decent emulator that works good. As far as movies, music, shows, audiobooks, I have a Plex server and my iPhone has no problem accessing that. I bet you could use an Android phone as a Plex server though. Not that I'd want to. But you probably could. Maybe. Like with root? I dunno. But anything on my iPhone (not counting Plex stuff), I can get on your Android phone. And vice-versa. I mean, not to use your Android phone as an example, that's kinda hostile, I mean if I have an iPhone in one hand and an Android phone in the other, I got no problem getting stuff from one to the other. Either way. Best if they're on the same WiFi, but I can make one a hotspot in a pinch.