Google I/O and WWDC have been and gone, and Google and Apple have laid out the plans for their next major platform updates — Android M and iOS 9.
Now that we’ve had a chance to let those announcements sink in, it’s time for Cult of Android and Cult of Mac to battle over which is best in another Friday Night Fight. Let us help you decide which one will reign supreme when they roll out to the public this fall.
Killian Bell (Writer, Cult of Android): Luke, what are your thoughts on iOS 9? Apple’s made some nice improvements — particularly for iPad users — but do you think those improvements can convince Android fans to switch, bearing in mind Android M is coming this fall?
Luke Dormehl (Writer, Cult of Mac): Interesting way of phrasing it, Killian. As an Apple user, I always look at this from the opposite perspective: Is there enough that Android offers that could make Apple users consider jumping ship?
All I can say is that Larry and Sergey are probably going to be waiting (at least) another year, because iOS 9 has the makings of a great mobile OS. It tweaks a ton of lesser features I’ve long been peeved about (lack of lower-case keyboards, for example), but adds some pretty sweeping additions like the new, improved Siri; multitasking for iPads; Apple’s great new News feature, better Maps, and so much more.
Honestly, I’m more excited about this year’s iOS than I have been in ages.
If anything you should be loving this year’s OS, too, because Apple’s making it easier than ever for Android users to switch to iOS. It’s like a time machine for reversing that fatal mistake they made all that time ago.
KB: It’s great that you can get excited about tweaks to “lesser features” — but I should point out that if you were an Android user, you’d have had almost all of those things a long time ago. Android already has split-screen multitasking on a multitude of devices and lower-case keyboards, and Google Now is much better than Siri will ever be (probably).
But leaving aside those things, there are plenty of reasons that iOS users would want to switch to Android — many of which we’ve discussed before — such as lots more freedom for things like customization and third-party apps. Then there’s Google Now on Tap, which is unlike anything in iOS, and likely won’t be matched by Apple for years.
LD: Like Android M hasn’t stolen its share of features from iOS? Without being petty and pointing out additions like the floating cut, copy and paste menu (which I guess I’ve now pointed out), you’d be hard-pressed to argue that Google’s newfound focus on privacy with the apps permission setup isn’t straight out of the Tim Cook playbook.
As for Now on Tap, I’ll admit it looks pretty sweet. Smart assistants have been tragically non-smart since they debuted, and I think this focus on context-aware suggestions is going to be a massive improvement. In fact, any other year I think you’d have a major selling point on your hands, but with Apple adding its new Proactive features, 2015 is all but guaranteed to mark the year Apple finally regains its rightful place on the virtual assistant throne.
KB: As I use iOS from time to time, I wish I could be as enthusiastic about Proactive as you are. It’s not that I’m not looking forward to it — because I am — but I just can’t convince myself that it will be as good as Google Now. At least not yet. Maybe in a few years once it’s had time to catch up, but certainly not in 2015 — especially when Now on Tap’s going to arrive and make Android’s assistant even greater.
LD: We’ll see. But enough beating around the bush, let me ask you the real question it would be intellectually dishonest not to bring up: What percentage of Android users are going to even get to use Android M? 1 out of 20?
Wasn’t it just this month that Lollipop finally made it, spluttering and wheezing, over the 10 percent adoption line? Say what you want about iOS 9, but at least we know that within its first few months alone, it’s going to have the majority of the iOS user base already using it
KB: I wondered how long it would take for you to bring that up. You make an excellent point, though; if I had it my way, all Androids would be running pure Android, and they’d get the latest updates as soon as they were available. But let’s not forget this isn’t Google’s fault.
If you buy a Google Nexus, you’ll get the update when it launches. But if you buy a Samsung or a Sony or an HTC, it’s up to them to bring it to you, and unfortunately they like to take their time.
You could argue that Google could force its hardware partners into delivering updates to their latest devices within a certain timescale, but that would almost certainly be a bad idea. You’ve seen how many handsets Samsung can churn out; if it had to release updates for everything it launched in the last six months, they’d be half-assed releases full of bugs — and no one wants that.
LD: Oh, I get it, I just don’t like it. Still, I’m sure the smattering of Android users who don’t wind up stuck on a three-year-old mobile OS will be happy enough. At the end of the day, I view this as the year that Apple caught up on some of the features Android fans have been clinging onto as their only defense against iOS, while adding some other nifty features like “low power” mode, which will just make iPhones more usable. Best of all, everyone gets to use it!
So is this the year you finally throw in the Android towel and come, hat in hand, to join the beautiful people here on Cult of Mac?
We’ll accept you. Honest.
KB: I’ll never throw in the towel on Android, because I like to try out innovative new features at least 12 months before they come to iOS. And so do millions of others — which is why Android is by far the most popular platform in the world. It’s great that iOS is catching up, but with Android M coming this fall, I don’t think too many people will be jumping ship to try iOS 9.
LD: Ha! You think we’re catching up, when in fact we’re close to lapping you. Don’t worry, it’s an easy mistake to make.
I guess we leave this one up to the readers.
KB: Lapping us? Laugh. Out. Loud. It seems Apple’s really gotten to you. But yes, we’ll let the readers decide — with their wallets.
Let’s see which platform is king this time next year.
LD: Judging by the amount iOS users spend compared to Androiders you’re king of a bankrupt nation. But sure, let’s meet this time next year and you can inform me just how exactly you like your humble pie.
Friday Night Fights is a series of weekly death matches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
15 responses to “Android M vs. iOS 9: A battle of the giants”
Users have already spoken with the Android and Apple battle… 40million iPhones being sold in launch weekend and less than 50million Galaxy S6 phones sold after being out for 6 weeks. I know that Samsung is not the only Android, but it has been the forerunner for the platform in recent history.
I think your numbers are a bit off.
10 million iPhones sold opening weekend the same number it took Samsung to sell after 30 days, slower than the S5 which was slower than the S4.
With regard to the article.
iOS 9 will be on the vast majority of devices come release.
Android M will be on well less than 5% until the end of the year.
Features Smeatures if the customers can’t get access to it then it’s going to be a hollow victory for Android.
Yeah… Thing is, by the time Android M is on even a somewhat descent amount or newer Android phones, Apple will probably be 2 months away from introducing IOS 10. Hell, Samsung devices are just this year, starting to get Lollipop.
Why do I care how many S6 phones sell? I thought this article was about operating systems? So if 10 percent of Android users have L – and five times as many Android phones sell as IOS – doesn’t that mean more than half as many people have L as have the most recent version of IOS? That seems like a fairly close race.
@JT
“So if 10 percent of Android users have L – and five times as many Android phones sell as IOS”
Here’s the thing. It took 6 months for L to reach 10%. iOS 8 achieved that in about 4 days. So let’s see M adoption first, but based on the greed of the carriers it’s going to take six months for it to reach 10% this time round again.
Also even if Android (not that there is such an entity as such merely a loose collection of manufacturers all using variations of the same OS) is selling 5x as many devices there is a good chance that the vast majority of those will be low end devices that would be lucky to see Lollipop, let alone M.
Android and iOS are two platforms coming from opposite directions and coming to the same point at almost the same time. The question is which was a better ride getting here and which will be better as we go forward.
Android started way behind! Google’s response was make it free and make it open. This gave bragging rights in some areas because you “could” multitask from day one but it killed your performance and battery. This also allowed for applications to share each others data more easily but at the expense of security.
Apple was ahead from the word go so they could hold back and only release as features would be mature for anyone to take advantage of. Multitasking was limited to system level events that Apple could control and ensure the over all user experience. Applications were held back to ensure security.
So now Google is trying to put the genie back into the bottle to get a hold on security and performance and Apple is opening up to allow for interoperability and functionality. IMHO this has given iOS users a far better user experience (as a whole) and puts them into good position for security and features going forward.
Well said.
i can see why android is a popular platform, with perrty much any hard wear company that can use the os but i think iOS is just that bit more polished, but both do the same just down to what you like looking at.
Android is a trying hard OS. It can never match iOS, so it floods itself with whatever feature they can think of to add to it so it would look more advanced than iOS, when in reality, not really a whole lot of users use them. What does Hyundai do to make it seem better than a BMW? They add so many techs into it to make it look like a better buy. But no. I’d still prefer a base model BMW over a fully loaded Hyundai.
2 five year olds fighting over whose stick is bigger as opposed to simply enjoying either OS.
fmac ….. < Start working at home with Google! It’s by-far the best job I’ve had. Last Wednesday I got a brand new BMW since getting a check for $6474 this – 4 weeks past. I began this 8-months ago and immediately was bringing home at least $177 per hour. I work through this link, < www.Netcash9.Com
I too was infected by the Apple virus LD. I was able to remove that veil they had over my eyes and I saw true light. Its a vast new world you’ll enter and wonder to yourself how you encased yourself in such a limited form of living. I had the Iphone 3,4,5
It is a plain as day fact that 5 of the 6 headlining features of Android M are already in iOS….. so….. yeah, there goes that “iOS catching up to Android” argument out the window. Both platforms catch up to each other, they simply don’t do it in chronological order. Remember when Android added actionable notifications to the lock screen last fall? Apple fans were like “that’s so iOS 6”. Just one example of many, but the fandroids close their eyes to those examples so they can continue to believe falsely that they invented everything…
fmac………. < Start working at home with Google! It’s by-far the best job I’ve had. Last Wednesday I got a brand new BMW since getting a check for $6474 this – 4 weeks past. I began this 8-months ago and immediately was bringing home at least $177 per hour. I work through this link, < www.Netcash9.Com
I tell you, one thing my iPhones (3GS, 4S, 5, 6 Plus) have never had that my wife’s GS4 has is the group text feature that sends out the same message as individual messages to each number, rather than one group message that everyone gets updates on. As a regular user of group texting to reach family and students, I would LOVE for iOS to have this feature. It would make my world easier…no more “who is this” responses from student-to-student because it’s a group text.