Phone Wars: iPhone vs. Android

As a teenager, one of the biggest decisions is picking what phone you want. There are many brands to chose from and mostly all of them have special features about them that other phones don’t.

The market is dominated by two platforms, iPhone and Android.  So how do you chose between the two?

Both offer a variety of features that the other doesn’t.

For example, iPhone’s hardware is only controlled by Apple, which makes it more reliable and less likely to freeze up because there is only one brand of phone on this hardware.

Android releases its hardware to Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola, and more. This sometimes causes Android phones to be more likely to freeze up and have problems. On the other hand, there are a greater variety of phones to chose from that have different features and different styles that iPhone doesn’t offer.

The iPhone also has iMessage, which allows people to know if the message was delivered and if the person has read that text. But, if you have an Android you’re out of luck.

Androids have a larger variety of phones than the iPhone does. This may make the decision that much harder, but also that much more fun.

But, with the release of the two new iPhones, it makes it that march harder on Android creators to surpass them. With new features such as wireless charging, face ID, upgraded camera, and a full screen phone, it will be much harder for Android to compete with Apple.

Another factor that might influence Tyrone students living in rural areas is that iPhones allows messages to be sent over WiFi instead of having to rely on cellular service, which is often spotty in rural areas.

“For me, it wasn’t that difficult of a decision between the iPhone and the Android phones because I don’t have good service at my house. So, I needed the iPhone, which has  iMessage, to communicate over WiFi because Androids don’t have that feature,” said senior Emily Lehman.

The choice between these brands of phones could also be based on celebrity liking. If a teenager sees their idol, whether a singer or a dancer with the new iPhone 8, they could potentially base their decision, of choosing a phone, off of who has what.