There is no doubt about this: Android offers a fantastic ecosystem with some of the best phones and the best tablets that money can buy. When you opt for products powered by the Google operating system, you will find devices that cover almost all imaginable needs, budgetary phones with powers rich in functionality. It is also a highly customizable system that allows you to modify it in any way you can imagine, unlike Apple locked offers.
However, despite all that, I never owned an Android phone.
Of course, I had a Samsung slipped at the time, but it was probably before Android was even a consideration inside the Google seat (honestly, it was also a terrible phone). Instead, I have been faithfully stuck with Apple since I got an iPhone 3GS, never since venturing out of the famous enclosed garden.
So why was I never tempted to go on the Android side and drop my Apple products for good, despite the open attraction of Google’s mobile operating system? Well, there has been something that has made me an Apple loyalist for many years now: the transparent way of Apple devices all works together, and the incredible features that it allows.
Apple controls both the hardware and software underlying its products, and that’s something I think a lot of people really underestimate. If Apple knows exactly which operating devices and systems it will work, it knows what type of functionalities it can build, and it knows that these features should function reliably for everyone.
With Android, you are talking about a wide range of various hardware and software configurations. This has its advantages, but it is also difficult for developers to take into account all these variations. This presents functionality and compatibility problems, which limits what can be done to a certain extent that does not occur with Apple.
For example, I like the way I can place my iPhone on my mac monitor and it instantly becomes a webcam, no software configuration required. Or how I can use a single mouse and a keyboard on my mac and my iPad, or drag and drop a file from my iPhone to my mac without a hitch.
Of course, some of these features work on Android, more or less, but they are far from so smooth. Apple features operate automatically and intuitively, without additional software to install and without heavy configuration process to browse. My Apple devices recognize themselves and work together without a hitch.
This is something that I just can’t climb on Android – not to the same extent, anyway. Thus, although Android has a lot to offer, it is short compared to Apple with regard to this impactful area.
Smooth integration
That said, my configuration is a little more complicated than I had done. In addition to my Apple kit, I also have a Windows PC, which does not always play well with my iOS and macOS devices. I certainly cannot use Apple exclusives as transfer, universal control and more both on iOS and Windows, for example. Even if I appreciate the ecosystem attached to Apple for the most part, there are still attempts at my PC.
What I want is something that offers all these features through all My devices. I will not get this Apple with its enclosed closed garden – the company does not like to share, after all. Things like the continuity camera will never come to the windows, at least not in a native form of Apple.
But at the same time, I certainly do not obtain this Android feature either, which is too dispersed and fragmented to offer the same type of integration as Apple can provide.
In the end, Apple always gives me the best way to make all work devices work together. I love how the use of my iPhone, iPad and Mac unlocks all kinds of neat functions and features that I cannot get anywhere else, and I know that if I went to Android, I would lose a lot from that.
I cannot say if there is a solution on the horizon that works for Apple products and the Windows / Android world. But for the moment, Apple has the upper hand, at least for me. Hopefully Android can find a way to catch up in the future.
