(Name of Professor)
iPhone vs Android
The use of mobile technology provides numerous advantages and benefits to the mobile consumers in general. The two of the most popular mobile technology there is in the market today are iPhone by Apple Technology and Android Smartphones by Google. This paper aims to evaluate these two products in terms of their features and marketability based on reputable consumer reports.
The operating system is one of the defining features that set the iPhone and Android Smartphones apart. For many years, Apple has dominated the mobile technology arena by providing what the consumers find to be the best operating system in the market until Android caught up. Professional mobile developers now rank Apple’s iPhone iOS as behind Google’s Android Smartphones’ Jelly Bean operating system. They describe the latter as more rendering, highly customizable, more polished and with better application and operating system integration.
iOS does not support offline map usage and so far it cannot beat Google’s map databases that are available in Jelly Bean. While Apple tries to work on providing a better organization on its map navigation feature, it could not beat Jelly Bean public transit direction feature. iOS supports Siri, the iPhone personal assistant who can answer its users’ queries. “Google Now” is the counterpart of Siri in Android Smartphones that basically performs tasks on voice command too but the difference is Siri does not work in offline mode while Google Now can. Users of iPhone enjoy better connectivity experience using Safari and save web pages you like while Android phone uses Chrome as its default browser. iOS advanced feature on the other hand is its ‘Do not disturb”option that handles incoming messages silently without causing the screen to light which is a feature with no counterpart in Jelly Bean.
The iPhone offers massive applications to be available in the App Store and most of these are considered to be more secure than the applications that are available from the Google Play app, mainly because Apple observes more stringent screening and higher security standards from its application providers as compared to the Android market, now called the Google Play store. On one hand, one can enjoy better customizable experience with Android. Apple locks down its user experience and this could be a bit less interesting and fun for its users. Android on the other hand offers massive hardware selection and numerous customizable applications such as changing the Android Smartphone’s keyboard.
According to the consumer reports, only just a few months after declaring that the iPhone 5 is the best Smartphone, the Business Insider named the same phone as the worst (Schubarth, 2013). It appears that consumers dropped the rank of iPhone 5 as it lags behind the Samsung Galaxy S III and LG Optimus G based on the Sprint, Verizon and AT&T subscribers. This seems to look bad on iPhone 5 and Apple is currently concocting to create a better iPhone 6 that will again bring back its dominance in the mobile market industry.
However, it is not the only basis in evaluating the marketability advantage feature of Android Smartphones over the iPhone. In a study performed by the Strategy Analytics, a market research company, the US consumers still ranked the iPhone 5 as the highest on their wish list according to its Consumer Electronics Buying Intentions in the US for 2013 (Tufts, 2013). Apparently, the study outlined several consumer electronics models like iPhone, Blackberry, Android Smartphones, eReaders as among others and the Android lags behind the iPhone with only 21.6% likelihood of American consumers to purchase one in contrast to the 23.5% likelihood for the same consumer population to buy an iPhone for the year 2013. The iPhone did not completely lost its appeal to the consumer market especially among the professional consumers.
In conclusion, this market evaluation finds it necessary to qualify the marketability of the iPhone and Android based on the consumer’s needs. Apple’s security features remain to be the top of the line in the mobile technology market, making their mobile device less customizable with limited applications that can be used to perk the user experience of iPhone users for the reason that it maintains a high standard for application developers to meet before they can get their app products to the App store. Android on the hand is more appealing to mobile users because it offers more flexibility and highly customizable features which is its greatest advantage over the iPhone. For business professionals, the iPhone remains to be their top choice while mobile users who prefer a more personalized mobile experience, Android Smartphones are more marketable in this respect.
References:
Tufts, Andrew. iPhone Still King of American Consumers’ Wish List. Oneclickroot.com. 23 January 2013.
Schubarth, Cromwell. Consumer Reports: iPhone 5 is best and worst. 6 January 2013. Silicon Valley Business Journal. Bizjournals.com. 7 April 2013.
