Gadgetory

have you been wondering how Apple's latest version of iOS compares to the latest version of Android hi I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and this is iOS 7 versus Android 4.3 in the last week alone Android turned five years old and iowa's underwent the single most important update in its history the latest respective versions of the two platforms 4.3 jelly bean and iOS 7 are now quite distant from their original versions we figured what better time to put these two under the microscope and compare them than now when Iowa 7 was first announced and released to developers as a beta in June the typical finger-pointing ensued but we're beyond that point we're better than finger-pointing and tattling it's whiny and childish so rather than focusing on who did what first let's focus on what truly matters who does what best at the surface the two operating systems have a lot in common both are lunging towards minimalist design and beautiful typography so we can't knock them for looking too much alike but commend all the designers for making them look as simple and beautiful lock screens admittedly look a lot alike but Android uses widgets while iOS shows a beautiful stream of missed notifications both come with quick camera shortcuts as well the iOS homescreen is nothing more than a grid of icons and folders it always has been you can't put your icons just anywhere though they're aligned left to right top to bottom 20 icons and folders can be added to each homescreen before another is created and four can be arranged among the static dock at the bottom folders are now paginated without a hard limitation on how many apps can be added Android is still utilizing the same old interface it's been using all along as well 5 home screens with the default set to the middle page it's a 4 by 4 grid that offers 16 slots for either app shortcuts folders or widgets widgets and icons can be added by opening the app drawer long pressing and dragging to the desired location on the home screen and folders by dragging an icon atop another icon and releasing the dock on the bottom of the Android home screen has also composed of four user definable slides pull down from the top of the display on both platforms to reveal notifications Notification Center on iOS 7 was given a significant facelift with the today view for calendar stocks dismissing notifications in Android however is much easier simply flick left or right or hit the dismiss all button and Notification Center you must choose each section of notifications at a time by hitting the tiny Clear button twice Android still does notifications better the status bar indicates that you have notifications waiting to be attended to a notification previews are much less obtrusive ioss banner notifications continue to cover UI elements though a simple upward flick will dismiss the banner but the notifications are still disjointed badge notifications are very loosely tied to what's in Notification Center but a badge indicating pending notifications for a specific app does in no way entice us to pull down the notification shade it's still not unified in any way for quick controls pull down from the top of the display in Android with two fingers or tap the icon in the upper right corner of the notification shade on iOS command center is accessed by pulling up from the bottom of the display androids panel looks better and is implemented a little better but command center actually has more toggles and controls iOS now uses a bright and vibrant color palette with whitespace design meaning it's very light filling with tons of whites pastels and neons Android is similar in that it uses a sort of neon blue as an accent color with thin lines and typeface but its primary color for backgrounds buttons and other elements is black both have their own live or dynamic wallpapers in iOS 7 is all about layers sort of like ogres or parfaits your choice the parallax effect as well as the transparency of control center and Notification Center create dimension something Android does to an extent but not as noticeably at times they feel like polar opposites other times they feel very much alike as if years down the road the two could become nearly indistinguishable but there's a trick Android has that iOS doesn't if you don't like how I OS seven looks tough cookie swap your wallpaper and get over it or jailbreak when it's available on Android just change the launcher swap the eye contact apply a theme or install a different ROM Android for the most part has ultimately been about function over form whereas iOS is generally the opposite Android has only recently been considered by many to be fairly user friendly but iOS has always had a reputation for simplicity that penchant for simplicity has come at the expense of sheer function sadly everything is locked down in sandbox forcing users to jump around the OS to do simple tasks for those who value the utmost function Android has more to offer information such as pictures or links can be shared between multiple applications without ever having to return home or tasks which hit the universal share button and a list of compatible applications will appear on iOS there is only a preset number of applications and services you can share from within any app for instance if you want to share a picture to Instagram from the gallery on Android simply navigate to the picture hit share and select Instagram from iOS you will need to leave the Photos app open Instagram compose press the gallery button find the photo again and then proceed with the process the only reason I can share to buffer from within feedly using an iPhone is because feedly has hard-coded buffer support into the app itself which is nice but if I want to share something from within Safari to buffer say a link and a quote from the article I have to copy the link switch to buffer switch back to Safari I copied the quote switch back to buffer one more time paste and buffer from Android to do this from Chrome I simply have to copy the quote hit action overflow select add to buffer paste the quote and buffer no app switching no nonsense unless we forget Android has the utmost utility on the lockscreen and home screen widgets or at a glance information from your favorite apps I could read my entire RSS feed on Android without ever actually opening an app there is no at a glance information on iOS unless you count the dynamic icons such as the standard clock or calendar app but they're so small their utility is limited and that gets us to multitasking before multitasking on iOS worked but it was clunky poorly implemented and made it a chore to close applications Androids wasn't much better back in the day until Matias Duarte came along and added the card view multitasking with swipe gestures to close Apple also implemented a card view in the task switcher with gestures for quickly closing apps aside from the fact that most Android phones have a dedicated key for recent apps the two are virtually neck-and-neck for task switching now kudos Apple their respective ecosystems and applica catalogs can't go unstated either those play a major part in functionality as well google has a broader online ecosystem which can be accessed on either platform almost in its entirety gmail calendar contacts Google+ Drive play movies and TV YouTube and much more but using Google services on its own platform is rewarding you don't get that level of integration or polished offered by the native Gmail Apple and Android with Gmail on iOS Apple's ecosystem has the heavyweight iTunes iCloud and one of the richest selections of digital content available both are easy to get sucked into and difficult to get out of but we can try to break down the massive application support for both major titles and developers often provide support for both platforms as of July Google Play offered over 1 million applications and games Apple's App Store reportedly passed the 950,000 app threshold just two days ago if you can tell a difference in the quality or quantity of either just by sifting through them you're not human iOS typically has more game support but Android store is also filled with lots of customization software wallpapers icon packs themes launchers etc then there's Siri and Google now both are easy to access and tied to the home button but the general consensus is that Google now is more useful in many ways both can be used to compose emails text and make requests about the area around you where to shop where to get food movie times etc but Google now provides information without user input it learns you and if you don't like speaking to your phone you can simply type a request into Google now but series latest tricks such as hardware control is certainly noteworthy finally performance iOS really hasn't had performance problems ever of which we can recall at least sure Iowa 7 may not run well on your iPhone 4 or iOS 6 may have bought your 3GS down but iOS has always been very well polished and offered a buttery smooth experience on relevant Hardware that's more that can be said for Android which was once synonymous with lag and stutters jellybean has all but solved that problem project butter has dramatically changed the performance of Android it's smooth and now offers similar performance to what many have grown to expect from other platforms like Windows Phone or iOS so we leave you with a question to end all question jellybean or ios7 normally I would give you a definitive answer but that wouldn't be fun now would it so we'll say this for simplicity and reliability we give it to iOS 7 but for customizability functionality and appearance Android jelly bean takes the cake that's gonna do it for this video if you enjoyed it and would like to see more videos like this one in the future be sure to let us know by clicking the thumbs up button below and subscribing find us in all the usual places twitter google+ and facebook at pocket now you can find me on twitter at casper tech i'm taylor martin and i will see you next time