Apple’s WWDC is in full swing, and arguably the biggest part of its
keynote yesterday morning was the unveiling of the new iOS 7. Now that
iOS 7 has been announced we can formally pit the two biggest mobile
operating systems head to head. It’s go time – Android 4.2 Jelly Bean vs
iOS 7 – in an all out fight to the death (or at least till one
smartphone runs out of battery, whatever comes first).
Disclaimer: I do not absolutely, positively hate
iOS. I think it’s a decent operating system, but I do believe Android
has surpassed iOS in terms of functionality and user experience (or at
least when compared to iOS 6). I own a fourth-gen iPod Touch and a
third-generation iPad, and both devices are running the latest version
of iOS 6.
UI design
iOS 7 offered the first major change in the design of iOS since its
inception, opting for a cleaner, more modern look with flatter icons,
and a big emphasis on translucency. Apple has also chosen an
ultra-saturated palette of colors that you'll either love or hate. The
overall design is refreshing, yet still familiar, a difficult feat that
Apple has managed to pull off.
Android 4.2 Jelly Bean offers a darker, moodier user interface, with
black the predominant background, white text using the familiar Roboto
font, and accents of blue. Android 4.2 Jelly Bean offers the consistent
Holo UI, which has been heralded for its modern look.
Multitasking
Multitasking is a big part of your smartphone user experience, and it
was also one of the places where Android had the upper hand. Well not
anymore, as Apple completely redesigned multitasking on iOS to provide a
smarter, more efficient multitasking experience.
Now all apps in iOS can open background tasks, moving iOS closer to
Android in that respect. But one place where iOS defeats even Android is
the fact that the multitasking is intelligent. If you open your
favorite news apps every morning and night, iOS knows this and refreshes
the app at those times.
It’ll also analyze aspects like the strength of your Internet
connectivity so that it will refresh apps at the right time. This is a
very cool feature, in fact it’s probably my favorite from the keynote
and for that I’ll forgive it for its webOS-like appearance, but of
course we’ll have to wait and see how this all plays out in the real
world.
Android 4.2 Jelly Bean offers the same reliable multitasking that’s
been available since Ice Cream Sandwich. Click on the multitasking
button and you’ll see all of your recently opened apps in a preview.
Clicking on the app preview will open the app, and sliding the preview
to the left or right will get rid of the preview.
Lock/Home screen
Apple developed a brand new Lock screen for iOS 7, offering a live
wallpaper which may or may not look like the Phase Beam live wallpaper
in Android. iOS 7 also gives you access to your notifications straight
from the Lock screen.
There aren’t many radical changes to the Home screen, besides the
ability to add pages to your folders and a new color scheme and design
for app icons. Sadly, this means there are no widgets available for use
on iOS 7.
The Android 4.2 Jelly Bean Lock screen is a much more eventful place.
The addition of Lock screen widgets allow you to get a glimpse of what
is going on in your phone without ever having to unlock it. It also
gives you quick access to apps like the camera, clock, mail, messaging
and Google Now.
Android’s customization is also shown in the Home screen. Here you
can add apps, folders and yes widgets too. This allows you to customize
your device to exactly the way you like it, and with the thousands of
widgets available in the Play Store, you certainly have a lot to choose
from.