Even with the worldwide pandemic going on we’re still able witness the technological marvels in the various industries but here we’re going to focus on a particular industry that we all love, i.e. Communication and IT industry. Due to the pandemic many people (including the writer party) are constantly stuck to their phones and checking out news or new devices they’ll like to own and moaning whenever they see their favorite device on “Currently Unavailable”.
No matter how much we love their looks and their cameras, the most important thing for many of us tech freaks is what they run on and what is the better operating system. As you already know, there are many blooming Operating systems but at the end of the day it usually ends between Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. And this 2020 Q3 both of them will launch their latest editions of operating systems namely Android 11 and iOS 14. Many smartphone brands are planning to get the latest Android 11.
And in this article we’re gonna debate (there’s no fight club) about which system is better (War continues), so let’s get started but do know we’ve split this article between Android 11, iOS 14, comparing, and the final verdict.
- Android 11.
Let’s with the massively used operating systems from Google inc. This operating system is nearly used by 2 billion people worldwide, which is the highest percentage of users in the world. Google initially launched the first preview build for Android 11 on February 19th 2020, as a factory image for Google Pixels and we’re planning to release the official Beta version to the public somewhere in June but COVID-19 happened. Android phones are preferred by most of the people and presently the one that is trending in the market is OnePlus 8 pro, however it comes with Android 10, but the premium look and superior design of this handset makes it a Pro. Buying cases for OnePlus 8 pro simply adds a charm to your handset.
Talking about Android 11 This is the 11th important release and the 18th version of the Android Os, currently the Android 11 beta is only eligible for Google Pixel 2, 3 , 3a, and 4; Good is still working on the official version but I gotta say, the beta version is quite impressive but there are a few issues like:
1) You can’t opt out of the beta on Pixel phones or revert back to Android 10.
2) All user data will be erased when the beta version is running (worst possible thing).
- iOS 14.
Apple’s iOS is the second most renowned and used operating system in the world with 193 million+ users (and increasing) in the U.S.A. iOS 14 is Apple’s 14th release for iOS devices and it is currently available on the majority of iPhone and iPods Touch. It was first available for the public in July (nearly the same time as Android). Even though it’s available for all the iPhone and Pods, I think one should wait for the official version to roll out so you won’t have to deal with the unnecessary problems.
- Comparison.
Let’s check out the latest features and improvements in either of the Operating systems to get a better understanding of what they offer and which one is better.
1) Privacy: Privacy is easily the most important aspect of any digital device and both Apple and Google have further improved their privacy features in the latest iOS 14 and Android 11. The privacy improvement on iOS 14 is on a higher margin as the iOS 14 is the first ever iOS that will give notifications to the users whenever an app is using their camera and also give them better control over what apps track them.
While with Android 11 they’re offering One-time permission for apps to access location data or camera and microphone; this feature won’t be always active. Android 11 now uses scooped storage that’ll keep an app from using entire storage.
Here I think both iOS 14 and Android are tied as both already had those features.
2) Messaging: iMessenger is a highly used app on iPhone for text messages and in iOS 14 they’ve improved it by a lot and the users will now be able to enjoy the popular features available on apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. iOS14 also uses memoji that can be used on Whatsapp and Telegram.
In Android they’ve incorporated Chat bubbles like we saw on Facebook Messenger to make texting a lot easier and faster.
I dare say Android 11 is the winner in the messaging section they’re using bubbles, although iOS might go ahead next time.
3) Quick Settings: Android 11 has the biggest change in its Quick setting function. Now that they’ve made changes in it, it looks quite impressive and has added a music player widget to it (thumbs up to that) while iOS 14 Quick settings function remains mostly unchanged by they’ve added a few new toggles.
iOS 14 Quick settings menu still looks a lot better than Android 11.
4) Camera: No new changes for camera is either iOS 14 or Android 11.
5) Recent Apps: iOS 14 uses the same setup as the last few iOS versions while Android 11 definitely has the worst possible recent apps setting as it displayed just 1 app at a time with a slight hint of the other recent apps on the side.
As someone who constantly switches between apps, this set-up is a nightmare.
6) Widgets: And here we have the highlight feature of iOS 14, widgets have been around on Android for long but they don’t do more than telling the weather but in iOS14 you get widgets for everything and you can also easily create custom widgets for any app.
Even though Android was the first to launch these, iOS has clearly done it better than them.
7) App clips/ instant apps: This is my personal favourite feature to checkout any apps and I’m glad that it is now available on iOS devices App clips is quite similar to the Google Play Instant apps that was released in 2017.
iOS14 app clips will enable apps to users to use an app without downloading the app, and these app clips will perform specific tasks like renting a car, booking tickets (by incorporating it into Yelp). These app clips can use no more than 10 MB of storage space.
Android already has this feature and it is a bit better than the one iOS14 as you even play games with Google Play instant. Android apps are far much better than IOS app clips.
8) Battery life: Sadly no improvements for battery in either iOS 14 and Android 11. If they had, they’d be the instant winner.
Special features:
iOS 14 now incorporates better car play and can also let you open car doors with NFC tags while Android 11 has incorporated in-build screen recorder and is testing a newer version of Bluetooth and now the Bluetooth wont disconnect during aeroplane mode! This is definitely a plus.
- Final Verdict.
There isn’t much to compare between Android 11 and iOS 14 as Android 11 clearly has and already had most of the features available in iOS 14 and even if you put iOS above Android it’ll be meaningless as Android hardly works the same way as iOS does and one can easily change the layout and behavior of Android with launchers and other apps. So in short you can get an Android phone that behaves like an iPhone.
But even though iOS is quite lacking compared to Android OS, when they do add the features, they do it right.
For now, comparing between those 2 giants is meaningless.