IPhone or Android: it's time to decide on the religion

Neither Apple, nor Google, now just can not imagine any new OS feature (not to mention the upgrades of existing ones), without it there and then compared to the alternatives available to the competitors. Hot debate about who has the best notification or more convenient multitasking, provoked by both companies. At the conference Google I / O, Sundar Pichai subtly hinted that the custom keyboards and widgets that appear in iOS 8, in Android, there are now five years old. A month ago, at WWDC 2014Tim Cook criticized Android more directly:

Many of our customers come to us with Android. They mistakenly bought Android-smartphone and have been looking for the best user experience. And a better life.

Despite the hostility of both companies and mutual studs, their mobile platforms are beginning more and more to resemble each other. Apple has a Continuity between iOS and OS X, while Google sync notifications between Android and Chrome OS. One company offers HealthKit, another - Google Fit. However, the goals they share - to build a global ecosystem of devices, services, applications, and then "plant" on her members. Life will certainly be easier when all your gadgets to interact with each other, but to achieve this, you have to define your preferences. In the autumn we are waiting for, perhaps, the most extensive renovation both platforms during the last few years, which means that their meticulously platforms comparisons with each other will be more than ever. And more than ever, your preference will dictate to you further choice plate, set-top boxes, cars, watches, and even a fitness tracker.

At the conference I / O Google has demonstrated their ambitious plans to create a unified user experience to all devices, regardless of their purpose and size of the screen. The key role in this, of course, is given Android-smartphone, which will be a kind of center of the ecosystem. New to Android Wear smart watch (and other wearable electronics, obviously) will be able to offer a lot of cool features, but they are all tightly "tied" to the smartphone. If you want to order a pizza, call a courier directly to your wrist, you will still need to be Google ecosystem. The same applies to Android TV functionality that Sony and Sharp will be installed this year on their TVs - one more reason to buy Android-smartphone. All large-scale Google plans to eventually converge on a smartphone, which is the heart of the ecosystem created by the company.

Apple no less ambitious. In its software will be synchronized not only photos, but also all of your edits, and on all your devices. Apple wants the iPhone to control your home via HomeKit was your personal physician HealthKit. Apple TV and AirPlay are already offering a lot more interactive features than the promise Google's Android TV; and with CarPlay Apple iPhone is going to expand the influence, just as Google requires motorists to make life easier with Android Auto. All these duplicate functions, it's just the spokes of a rotating wheel, the center of which is a smartphone: iPhone for one camp and Android - for another.

These dynamic trends recognized Amazon, which was the need to create a smart phone, as a kind of reference point of their vast ecosystem as a result of the world saw the Amazon Fire. It is well aware of Microsoft, which for many years trying to create a competitive Windows Phone, to contrast it with the leaders of the mobile market. Selecting the first smartphone largely affects your subsequent decisions and preferences in the choice of a variety of other related things: music services, cloud storage services, photo-sharing, and it is of paramount importance for companies, which is very important to have your first smartphone running on their BY. Inexpensive Android One hardware platform from Google, aims to attract new users in emerging markets and to achieve this purpose.

What create Apple and Google, this is what they want to Adidas, Nike and other fashion brands: get people to use for all their needs of food companies. Such brand loyalty is more based on emotional attachment rather than practicality.

For the users themselves all this, too, will benefit. iOS 8 looks very promising, partly because of the widgets, which loved to flaunt androidovody; Interactive notifications on the lock screen and more open platform for rzrabochikov. Android is also growing with each new version and is more polished, reducing the gap in the aesthetics and the response of the system, compared to iOS. The basic feature set of both operating systems is nearly identical and are now branching basic functionality, this is what distinguishes them, forcing users to choose one or the other OS. The transition from one platform to another is very difficult for users, however, and iOS, and Android are now doing everything possible to make it unnecessary.

Utopia would be a unified global ecosystem, where the relationship between Apple and Google would be at the level of interaction between devices, not just mutual studs of their leaders. Some hope in this regard, serving companies such as Nike and Nest, which is under the wing of Google, but operates independently. The latter has recently opened an API for developers, who can now write applications for the smart thermostat Nest. Nike, in turn, makes the Fuel available for Google Fit, and for Apple HealthKit.

During the past years, all iOS and Android global updates are always presented in different times and have focused on the different functions, so that a direct comparison was a thankless and risky. But now manufacturers are the two dominant mobile platforms intend to do the same things in the same time: to expand its influence on the cars, health, wearable electronics and unify the user experience on all of them devices. Plans Apple and Google are united around the same priorities and both manufacturers promise large-scale renovation of its platforms this fall. This time the confrontation between them will be extremely hot.

Closeness Apple ecosystem will not go away and the more Google is making steps towards the integrity of their products, the more it is felt. However, the differences between the announced new OS is the extent of the most closed. The service life of your new smartphone, are unlikely to be longer than two years can not be said about the ecosystem that podrazumevat much more long-term use. It becomes clear that the new devices for Apple and Google, this is just a tool (bait, if you wish) to achieve other, more global objectives.

(via)