Comparison of Apple iOS and Google Android
written by JinSil Park
George Mason University
IT 103
Comparison
of Apple iOS and Google Android
Nowadays,
internet is inseverable from a lot of people’s lives, and the time when people
used internet only through computer at home, work, or libraries is gone. As
technology develops rapidly, people are quickly adapting new technologies
released to the world such as a smartphone, a tablet, or even a smart TV. Especially,
it is very hard to see a person without a smartphone. By August 2012, there are
107 million smartphone users in the U.S. and expected to reach 142 million
smartphone users in 2013 (“OPA Study”, 2012). There are
numbers of mobile operating systems for smartphones, but the two mostly used
are Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. The dominant mobile operating system in
the U.S. is Android with 39% of the market; the second dominant is iOS
accounting for 28% of the market (“Android and iOS,” 2011).
However, because Google’s Android is used by many other manufacturers also,
Apple’s iOS is the top smartphone manufacturer in the U.S. Likewise, because
Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are leading smartphone market, they are always
compared to each other trying to dertermine which operating system is better.
Even though both iOS and Android are mobile operating systems, they have both differences
and similarities in various ways.
Background: History of
Mobile Device Application
Before
comparing two dominant mobile operating systems, it is necessary to know how
they are different from the previous mobile devices. The mobile device
application eras can be largely divided into four eras – “candy bar” phones,
phones supporting wireless application protocol (WAP), smartphones, and
touch-screen smart phones. “Candy bar” phones named because of its appearance,
which looked like a candy bar, and had a small display and a very limited data
service to use. The phones supporting WAP were able to support wireless markup
language (WML), but it was still difficult to deploy applications. Smartphones
came up next, and they had quite different delivery method from the current
touch. These smartphones have tighter control over applications and provide
messaging and personal information management (PIM) features such as calendar
and contacts. Then touch-screen smartphones were released starting from iPhone. These
touch-screen smartphones are the smartphones that a lot of people think of now.
These
smartphones, which are treated as a development platform, are heavily based on
the application concept, and even have markets where people can buy
applications. The number and kind of applications are rapidly increased and
released for application markets. Also these smartphones are designed for
cellular 3G/4G networks so the users can use internet anywhere and whenever (Tracy,
2012, p. 31). The cellular
phone has been developed from a simple device of making and receiving a call to
an alternative device of a computer. As Tracy mentioned, the touch-screen
smartphones are treated as a development platform which can indicate that each
smartphone should have different platforms for their operating systems.
The Platforms
The
touch-screen smartphones are treated as a development platform (Tracy, 2012, p.
31). So, it is reasonable that the platforms of two mobile operating systems –
Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android – are different from each other. According to
Tracy (2012), “Apple’s iOS platform is based on a proprietary model with the
best development environment being on an Apple Mac running OS X and using the X
code development environment.” iOS and Apple OS X for Mac are compatible to
each other, since they use the same code development environment. “Additionally,
to develop apps, the Objective C programming language is the most supported
programming language.” “The iOS platform runs with four layers: Core OS/Kernel,
Core Services, Media Support, and the Cocoa Touch layer. The Cocoa Touch layer
provides support for using a touch-based interface.” Cocoa Touch layer is very
important because iPhone is a touch-screen smartphone and one of the factors
that makes iOS special and different from the previous smartphones. “iOS is tuned
to support touch-based devices and just support the touch-based interface.
Apple developed the iOS platform for iPhone in 2008. The strength
of the iOS platform is that
it has a relatively small number of versions and a small number of different
devices, all supported by Apple, which reduce the complexity a great deal for
the support.” When Apple iOS is based on X code development
environment, Android is designed as a specialized version of Linux for
phone-type devices (p. 32). Android applications are wriiten in Java that runs
on a virtual machine called Dalvik (Wong, 2010, p. 38) unlike iOS which uses
the Objective C programming language. Most of the environment for developing
apps is centered on Java. Google released many versions of Android and
continues to enhance the code base to offer more features and support for a
wider array of devices. Both iOS and Android are touch-screen
smartphone and have similar functions; however, they use very different
programs to build the interface and write applications. These differences show
how different the two mobile operating systems are from the base. The top two
mostly used operating systems for smartphones are still updating their software
and the latest versions by now are iOS 6 and Android Jelly Bean.
The Latest Versions of
Apple iOS and Google Android: iOS 6 vs. Android Jelly Bean
The latest version of iOS is iOS 6
and of Android is Jelly Bean and they have been released very recently. The
debates over determining the better mobile operating system is also going on in
many media. The major differences in the operating systems can be divided into
applications, browser sync, and call features. For application,
iOS has the largest number of applications as 650,000 applications with 225,000
iPad applications. Android also has a large number of applications – 600,000 –
but still less than iOS. iOS uses iCloud for browser sync which unifies the
browsing across all of other iOS and OS X devices. On the other hand,
Android uses the Chrome Beta on Android for syncing with desktop. Since Chrome
is one of the mostly used desktop browsers, this will be advantage for many
users. Call features are very basic application for a mobile device. iOS 6 lets filtering
out calls contacts, decline a call with a canned SMS response and has “Do Not
Disturb” toggle. While iOS 6 lets declining a call with a already
prepared SMS response, Android lets the users to compose the texts as a quick
auto-replies when declining a call. Android also can filter out calls from
specific people; however, Android lacks a Do Not Disturb mode
(“Android Jelly Bean,” 2012). Even though many people argues which mobile
operating system is better, but it is really up to the user to determine which
one would be the better for themselves. The person who wants a lot of
application may choose Apple iOS, and the person who uses Chrome for the
desktop browser may choose to use Google Android.
Legal/Ethical Issues: iOS
Jailbreaking and Android Rooting
If you hear a word “jailbreaking,”
you probably would not think of your smartphone. However, Keller explains “jailbreaking”
as “hacking a device to bypass DRM restrictions to run “unauthorized” software
and tweak the operating system.” “iPhone hackers coined jailbreaking in
reference to breaking the iPhone out of Apple’s iTunes ‘jail’ (Keller, 2012, p.
18).” The hack on Android platform is
known as “rooting.” People do “jailbreaking” or “rooting” for their benefits of
using unlimited applications for free. Of course there are some risks, such as
general instability, increased data usage, or lower battery life. Hacking the
mobile device seems to be an illegal action and many people would think so.
However, jailbreaking is legal since 2010 when the Electronic Frontier
Foundation argued that phone jailbreaking is legal and a federal ruling
accepted the arguments, which is unfortunate for the companies. Moreover, a
federal ruling added phone jailbreaking to a list of exemptions to the Digital
Milennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions (Keller, 2012, p. 18). The
companies are also fighting against making jailbreaking and rooting legal
action. According to Keller, “Apple and some other companies continue to plead
with regulators to outlaw the practice.” Unfortunately, the only way the
companies can prevent the users from jailbreaking is telling that jailbreaking
defies the terms of use and voids a device’s warranty. No matter of differences
between Apple iOS and Google Android, both mobile operating systems are
suffering from hacking their devices.
Security Concerns: Password Protection
The
touch-screen smartphones are very expensive and the only way the users can
protect their smartphones from theft is using password protection. Using
password would not prevent from theft hundred percent but this would be
helpful. Password protection would not only help preventing from theft, but it
would also help to protect personal information and privacy. However, 40% of
smartphone users in London do not use password function, when nearly three
million people in the United Kingdom became victims to phone theft. (“Business
Need Smartphone,” 2010). Especially
smartphone users who use it for business need to use password protection
because of the risk of leaking valuable information and data. Password
protection of iOS and Android seems to be the same, but there are some
differences. Android lets the users to lock by using a pattern, a pin, or a
password and it warns the user after first five wrong access attempts. Android
then waits for 30 seconds until 15 attempts and when it reaches 20 attempts
fail, the screen has to be unlocked using the configured Google account (Oh et
al., 2012, p.43). Also iOS has a password function that requires a password
either simple or complex. It is not recommended to use Apple ID password which
is used to download applications even if it is complex. After 6 failed attempts
on password or passcode, the device will be locked for a minute. After a
minute, if a password is incorrect again, the device will be locked for 5
minutes, and then an hour. If the password is failed 10 times, the device will
either ask the user to connect to iTunes or erase the data if Data Wipe option
is turned on (p.46). Both iOS and Android have functions for security and it is
the user’s responsibility to use the function. As smartphone gets more useful,
a lot of people use their phones to store various data of both personal and
business use. Thus it is even more significant to secure privacy.
Conclusion
The
two mostly used mobile operating systems for smartphones - Apple iOS and Google
Android – were very different from their platforms. However, their effort to
make better operating systems made the users to choose their devices. All the
applications and functions are for the user’s convenience.
It is very difficult to determine which mobile operating system is better and
more useful. However, since both Apple iOS and Google Android have pros and
cons, it is the user’s responsibility to choose the one that would be more suitable
to themselves.
References
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