for me is the apple watch mostly. in second place the integration with orher apple devices. I know samsung and google have equivalents but none is as polished, reliable, seamless as apple. And in the smartwatch world, wear os is no match at all. When android will have a proper smartwatch and integration, i will happily switch to Android because i pretty much prefer it for my personal phone.

Better garbage collection implementation in a better language. Every advantage ios has over android is due to decisions made at the start of these projects. iOS is smoother, more reliable, quicker, efficient. This software will always take less energy and be really really reliable because the developers put the hard work of using automatic reference counts.

you attract more b#tches that’s one

I am lazy, call comes to phone and I can pick up with my iPad. That’s neat feature

At this point it’s basically only personal preference.

There were times when iPhones were objectively better than most androids. That was rather in the earlier days.

IMO since 2017/2018 Androids which are in the same price range as iPhones offer the same or more features while also being of good build quality and software quality.

Regarding features; Androids tend to offer more features, but in 99% these are rather experimental and are often not even transferred to the successor.

The only consistent feature I can think of is personalization, and googles AI progress with their current Pixels.

One could argue that Androids are a tad more interesting, since you can do so much stuff through 3rd party apps or by default, or you have crazy camera setups and SPens and whatnot, but in the end it’s not an advantage if you won’t use those features or if they are messy.

So yeah, if you want an S-Pen or a crazy 200mp 10x space zoom Setup you obviously won’t go for iPhone.

I personally prefer the simplicity and mature design language of iPhones.

But If a future Android offers a feature I deperately want I’d switch again. And also switch back. I don’t lock myself to a brand.

So the eco system. It’s pretty much just that. Not talking about the phone just the os.

The thing is, when you say “longer support” and “apple ecosystem” you are already talking about a ton of features equivalent to the amount Android provides. Except the ones on iOS are all built-in.

The coherency of software and hardware is a world of it’s own. There are specific features of every device and every new release which blow people’s minds (Vision Pro reference). Some say Apple didn’t invent these “features”, and some of these claims are correct. But innovation is not the thing special about Apple products, it’s consistency. Shit works beyond expectations, and Apple designs them in a way far better than any competitor. For example, Face-ID as one of the replies said.

The simple and minimalist design of the OS, which is worth opening a paragraph for. Honestly, compared to Apple OSes, the design mentality of Windows and Android feels like they were quickly glued with things during a rainy night of 1980 and left like that. Sure you can change those on Windows and Android, but then it’s bloat, which is an unacceptable term for Apple devices.

Also system specific things such as absence of garbage collection and using ARC instead (which is one of the reasons why iPhones come with half the ram compared to Android devices yet provide the same performance), the power management and processor efficiency, the unmatched security for both the device and ecosystem. Also neither iOS nor MacOS come with built-in adware compared to Windows and some versions of Android. Nor nothing on Apple OSes can use trackers without your consent.

As for the ecosystem itself, for me, Airdrop and Handoff are one of the best things. If you own a Windows pc and Android device, you’d normally need to setup a bluetooth file sharing server to send a jpeg from one device to another and god knows if it’d work. But if you own a Mac bundled with an iPhone, forget sharing whatever file type you want to whatever application; you can just “copy” anything on one device and instantly “paste” it to the other device, at crazy speeds independent of your bluetooth or wifi tx rate thanks to the built-in Airdrop Receiver which uses P2P tech. (Unlike a FTP server, you don’t even need a router as a middleman to use Airdrop).

Oh also, there’s this another topic about what can you accomplish with a jailbroken iPhone, but I won’t write it here.

TL;DR: iOS be screaming “QUALITYYYY” all over.

You can back up your iPhone completely to a computer and restore it on a new iPhone. Android has nothing like that.

Day one updates. No waiting. Only the Pixel is like this.

Accessory ecosystem is really good. The iPhone is the default for most things in design and due to the limited number of models, most things fit around an iPhone better.

If you have a Mac or iPad, iMessage on those is nice and various cross device features are also nice.

Apple isn’t an advertising company, so they at least pretend to care about keeping your data secure. And more recently they’ve enabled features where if you don’t safeguard your passphrase, you will not get back into your account.

For me it’s a few things:

The hardware. I find it more polished. The camera is fast and consistent. The processors are far beyond anything in an android phone. The ecosystem around accessories is just way more built out.

Software fit and finish. Any time I use android the apps and experience just seem a little more janky. iOS is where the money is for dev, and you can tell they put more care into it. Also, I think it is a more predictable platform for developers, so it’s easier to spend time polishing an app. I enjoy photography. The iPhone has a huge ecosystem of great photo apps that interact directly with the built in system photo library. Developers tend to support Apples features and APIs very quick. For example. Apple has Shortcuts, which can be very useful for automating tasks. Android fans will be quick to point out Tasker is similar. The difference is that app developers have embraced Shortcuts and added tons of hook for it. So while Tasker may be technically more capable, in use I haven’t found it to be so.

Apples ecosystem of devices just work together so well. If you use a Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods, iPad, AppleTV, and HomePods you get a very nice (not perfect) integrated system.

At the end of the day both are perfectly serviceable. So pick the one that fits your style better. I’ve used both extensively and always find myself coming back to Apple.

Having jumped to iOS this year (15 pro). There’s only a few things that I see making a difference.

- Ecosytem (macbook stuff is nice but, at least for me, nothing extraordinary)
- You can tell apps are developed with iOS in mind first
- Resale value?
- Besides that, experience has been basically the same and I haven’t had that “wow amazing” moment so far

iOS just works for me, and most of my colleagues are also iOS users so sharing docs is easier.

I do have an android tho, I used to like customizing but nowadays I just slap on the Niagara launcher and call it a day.

The big one for me is the ecosystem and tight integration. If you’re in Apple’s ecosystem, then everything works together without having to jump through hoops. Factor in your friends and family in the same ecosystem, and it gets even better for sharing.

Cost of ownership for the item’s life cycle. Apple can cost a bit more upfront, but their products are supported longer, and they hold their value. Sure, other companies are starting to claim similar support, but until that support is realized, they’re just claims; see Pixel Pass.

This is a perk for me, but first-party apps aren’t prone to disappearing. We all joke around that Google comes out with a new app and kills it a few years later, but those choices have a real impact on the people who use them. Yeah, Apple is slow to update, and some of their apps are just bad Podcasts, but the chances of them going away are small. As someone who’s AuDHD, I don’t particularly appreciate reworking a workflow I’ve worked so hard to create because Google decided to take another crack at something by launching a new app with fewer features.

That word “ecosystem”, it’s not just another random feature of IOS, it is the core. I left Android about 7 years ago so I’m not sure if there’s any such thing as an ecosystem but in IOS that is biggest reason, of course there are individual bragging cool features for both platforms but don’t underestimate the ecosystem. My daughter fell of her bike and immediately Apple Watch alerts me and calls the ambulance as well, fortunately it wasn’t a severe fall. Stuff like that is priceless, I can copy something on my phone and just paste it on my laptop, there are probably equally cool stuff on Android, but the ability for IOS devices to interact seamlessly is what makes the difference imo

iPhones just work - for those of us who are the IT support for their family, iPhones are a fucking god send!

I dread thanksgiving because I’m that support guy for my parents and uncles/aunts - my uncle has already been sending me issues he wants me to look at on his Note 9 - I got my parent iPhones 14s last year cos I was just sick of having them constantly asking me how to “get something working the way it did before!”

For some reason, Android apps are so inconsistent, they change little things with each update and I swear, only boomers pick up on it cos “it’s changed!”

You can’t customize a lot of things on an iPhone and thank for that!

1. Better apps - almost every major apps respect the design language recommended by iOS (navigation view, gesture, accessibility, etc)
2. Better ecosystem
3. Better support

Overall, I just have better experience using iOS. It works well with my Mac, my iPad, my AirPods.