The rivalry between Android and iOS stems beyond the time of smartphones themselves and even beyond the time of electronic technology as a whole – it’s a rivalry that’s lasted as long as time itself! Well, at least to the average Android fanboy it does. Nevertheless, whether you believe in a rivalry lasting longer than the origin itself or you’re impartial to your device’s OS features and just want anything with a bitten Apple on its back, it’s safe to say there is certainly some friendly competition between the Android platform and Apple’s iOS. Each year both Android and Apple release new versions of their operating systems whereby new additional features are added to give users more out of their device however, in some cases, features may be removed in software updates, but we’ll touch up on that a little more in a second. Apple’s updates usually come in line with its annual smartphone releases to give its users the most out of their new iPhone. On the flip side, due to Android being a platform for more than 1,300 brands, it’s impossible for Android updates to be aligned with every different smartphone release. Whether this adds or takes away from the overall hype of Android content updates is another question.
Support
Now let’s dive deeper into what you’ll get from opting for either iOS 16 or Android 13. First things first, let’s take a look at what devices Apple has decided to support iOS 16 on. Apple’s iOS 16 is supported on every device produced after the iPhone 7. Unfortunately, for those using an iPhone 7 or older you'll miss out on not only the new update but also any future updates from Apple going forward, which puts them at increased risk of a security breach. If you’re unfortunate enough to fall into this category, don't want to break the bank but want to stay in the Apple ecosystem and benefit from the new iOS features, it may be worth taking a look at the new iPhone SE.
Android itself is owned directly by Google, meaning Google’s exclusive range of Pixel smartphones from the Google Pixel 4 onwards are all able to be updated to Android 13, with the new flagship Google Pixel 7 range coming pre-installed with Android 13. As for the more popular Android-affiliated brands, including Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus and more, the general consensus is that you can expect to be able to upgrade to Android 13 as long as your device was released in the last three years; however, if you want to know if your device can find out in your settings.
Lock Screen
One of the key focal points behind iOS 16 is the all-new re-imagined lock screen. The new lock screen will allow users to customise a number of elements, including the date and time font and add widgets; yes, widgets. Now, while widgets on Apple have been around since iOS 14's release in 2020, we were never able to have lock screen widgets, nor were we able to have live updates, which is also a core feature of iOS 16. These live widgets continuously update with the latest information rather than giving you multiple increasingly annoying notifications. This feature is perfect for when you want to look at live football scores, track current stock prices, or even see how close your Uber is. This is perfect for viewing notifications without the need to unlock or even touch your device. Apple claims there are millions of possible lock screen design combinations with this new update, which means there will be something for everyone.
Comparatively, whilst Android has, in fact, had widgets since, near enough, the dawn of its time, it’s still yet to bring forward lock screen widgets for users to have more accessibility on their device whilst locked. Some Android devices have started adopting always-on displays on their devices in the last few years, which is a sort of halfway-house between your standard lock screen and Apple’s new interactive live lock screen.
Language Options
Between the two operating systems, Android 13 is the first OS to bring users the ability to alter language preferences depending on the app being used. Previous to this, if any smartphone user wanted to change any language preferences on their device, they would need to do so on their system settings, meaning the language throughout the device would be the same. Now, this is fine. However, many users wanted to be able to have the extra flexibility to alter the language of their specific apps without needing to change the configuration of the whole phone, which is exactly what Android 13 has done. This feature is perfect for bi-lingual users who may prefer one language on one app and another for others, and with Android 13’s added update to Google translate, this ties in nicely.
Meanwhile, Apple has had the option for this for iPhone users since 2019’s iOS 13 update, so this is nothing new. The only edge that Google has over Apple with its iPhone 13 update is the fact that Android 13 users are able to make these changes in an easier fashion than iPhone users. In order to make these changes on iPhone, users will need to find the individual app they want to change in their settings and then look for the language option inside there, whereas Android users can just long-press the app on the home screen and change it from a drop-down menu.
These were just a couple of the numerous upgrades made to both Android 13 and iOS 16. Needless to say, there’s an abundance of new fun features to cover; however, we’d be here until next week if we were to cover them all in this one article. Let us know what your favourite upgrades to either of these platforms are and more importantly, whether you’re team Android or team Apple.
