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Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

118 points by belltaco ↗ HN
Not trying to start a flame war. I am finally switching away from my trusty Nokia Lumia 920 because the browser wouldn't load m.uber.com and WhatsApp says app will be gone at the end of the year. I like the snappiness of Windows Phone and iPhone UI. Haven't checked Android phones recently but years ago the UI was laggy and no one except I seem to notice.

Also know that sideloading apps, blocking ads in apps etc. is much easier on Android so I am hard pressed to decide between the two.

232 comments

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Arbalest
You've pretty much covered the bases. The snappiness you describe is because iPhone is more strict with it's app quality. You've also nailed the main use cases for customisability.

The big question is, are you ready and willing to root and/or custom rom your phone? If not, the advantages you described on Android are not as substantial as you may hope. Yes, you can use Netguard, but the approach is janky (out of neccessity). It will not stop ads in all apps either. For example, on the youtube app, which does not use DNS based advertisement delivery. For youtube specifically, you can get NewPipe though, but it's not all that slick.

nneonneo
iOS is very, very particular about what gets to run in the background. This is a major differentiating factor between iOS and Android. On Android, it's easy to write apps to run in the background, but on the flip side it's easy for someone else's app to accidentally (or intentionally) run in the background and suck up your battery and/or data and making your phone slow. On iOS, apps can only run in the background for very specific (but gradually expanding) purposes; many other features (like push notifications) that appear to be "background" functions are really handled by Apple or the iOS system itself with minimal app intervention and thus minimal system impact. This contributes to the snappiness of iOS.
CraftThatBlock
I feel like Android's overall quality in the past couple of years has dramatically improved. Any modern half decent phone will be quite snappy nowadays, and the software has been polished up a lot.
sundvor
Yes. In particular (for me) One UI by Samsung. Their new S10 phones are a fantastic upgrade, and the new software is a major part of that. Last versions of Touchwiz weren't too bad, but One UI lifts the experience to a new level.
CraftThatBlock
I agree, One UI would definitely win for "most improved" of the skins. Even stock (Pixels) is really great now.
copperx
I use a Pixel 2 and I felt the phone extremely sluggish compared to my old iPhone 7 from day one. The Pixel 2 was supposed to be a flagship model, so it makes me reluctant to ever buy an Android phone from another manufacturer; I can only assume non-flagship phones are slower than the official Google one. Is this a correct assumption?

The most frustrating thing about Android is its excruciating scrolling performance. When scrolling webpages you can see the animation isn't synced: the bottom part of the screen struggles to keep up with the top part, and it feels like the text is made up of a bunch of dancing ants, especially if you scroll slowly. iOS's scrolling is flawless. Reading stuff a primary use case of smartphones, why hasn't Google addressed this? Fortunately, Chrome on Android has decent scrolling performance and it's the only reason I haven't thrown this phone in the trash.

scarface74
I bought my son a Moto G last year because that was suppose to be a good mid range phone. It was an awful experience - far from snappy. The performance was sluggish. He happily “upgraded” to my old iPhone 6s that was 3 years older and it was a lot faster.
izacus
Of course, the iPhone 6S is faster in the same way as a 3 year old 3500$ SSD and top-of-the-line i7 equiped MBP is better than a new 600$ Acer laptop with a magnetic HDD.

What's your point though? If iPhone 6s for its 3-4x the MSRP price wouldn't be better than the low-end Moto G, it would be pretty sad.

scarface74
The 6s in 2018 was still being sold for maybe $449. Not too much more expensive than the Moto G. A discontinued new 6s can still be found now for around the price of a Moto G and in real world usage is still faster.
Der_Einzige
I can buy Android phones that do nothing to stop me from rooting them or unlocking the boot loader (OnePlus). I have to fight Apple for root access, and frequently I will lose.

You can do anything on an Android phone that requires root access. None of that is possible on iPhone unless it's been out for quite awhile.

taneq
"Install a ROM that respects my privacy" is right up there at the top.
Arbalest
I'm attempting to do that, but I've bumped up against an issue in which I have no radio access from the custom rom. Need to be picky with the hardware, and the stuff most likely to be supported is the most expensive.
taneq
Sucks. :/ I assume you've installed the vendor.img and flashed the radio-[phone model].img from the stock package for your phone model?
Arbalest
Possibly not. I was reading somewhere that I should actually get an older stock rom image and flash that first, but no I just flashed the rom zip and that was it.
taneq
That might be your issue then. It varies from phone to phone, but for my old one (Nexus 5X) I had to get the stock ROM from https://developers.google.com/android/images#bullhead and extract vendor.img, bootloader-bullhead-bhz31b.img, and radio-bullhead-m8994f-2.6.41.5.01.img (or whatever the matching versions are for your Android version). Then after installing the ROM archive, reboot into the bootloader and install them:

(install TWRP and custom ROM package)

> adb push vendor.img /sdcard/

(Go to 'install' in TWRP and install vendor.img)

> fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-bullhead-bhz31b.img

> fastboot flash radio radio-bullhead-m8994f-2.6.41.5.01.img

That's the quick version of how I set mine up and it works. :)

ryukafalz
I install lots of apps from F-Droid, which is an alternate app repository for exclusively free software. There's nothing like it (and can be nothing like it) on iOS, and while I know there are some free software apps in iOS, they're much harder to find there.
salutonmundo
I think because Apple sublicences software, GNU GPL–licensed software can't be released on the App Store. Probably other copyleft licenses are similarly incompatible.
axaxs
One thing to keep in mind that drives me insane is that the default animation speed on android, 1x, is very slow. It makes the UI feel heavy. Turning this to .5x, or even off, makes it feel more performant.
windexh8er
First thing I do on any new Android phone. It's also a great parlor trick, people are almost always amazed you can make their phone "faster" in under a minute.

For those who don't know, enable Developer Options, then change "Window animation scale", "Transition animation scale" and "Animator duration scale" all to "0.5x". It should really be the default and I'm surprised there isn't a "0.25x" as of yet.

em-bee
i can't find these settings anywhere on lineageOS
siphon22
Go to settings > about phone, and find the section that shows the "Build number". Tap it a bunch of times until it enables the Developer options for you. I don't know if it's different for Lineage, but that's how you do it for Android phones.
zubair_io
Real Firefox and Real Chrome. The iOS versions is just a wrapper around the painfully bad mobile Safari.
hombre_fatal
I thought Safari had the best power to battery consumption ratio of all the browsers. I certainly notice it on desktop where I switched to Safari last year, but that's pretty massive on mobile.

Safari seems to take this seriously instead of the race to the bottom on performance and resource consumption. I also like features like how Safari extensions are now 1st class apps and its declarative content blocker (1Blocker X being best in class imo).

What makes Safari so bad in your eyes?

Nextgrid
It does indeed win in terms of performance, however the situation in terms of add-ons is depressing. There’s basically no add-on API other than a very limited content blocking API (which doesn’t allow you to do powerful things like uBlock Origin can).

(full disclosure: I am a happy Safari user, and the content blocking API is good enough that I tolerate it but I do miss uBlock for sure)

hombre_fatal
I added to my comment just as you responded but I ended up looking at the declarative content blocker as an upside after developing my own. Have you tried 1Blocker X? I haven't missed uBlock Origin when using Safari. Though I can certainly appreciate the power of an onRequest(req) at-runtime API that you definitely lose with declarative rules.

But for example I have a script that can convert Adblock format rules (like Easylist) into content blocker rules.

Nextgrid
1Blocker X is a disaster, and I’m saying this as a customer of the original 1Blocker and an early adopter (pre-order) of 1Blocker X - it appears they’ve given up on updating their block lists and weren’t ever clear on where the lists were sourced from (I want EasyList and I kind of assumed that’s what they used but I could never be sure). I’m currently using AdGuard Pro instead which uses EasyList/EasyPrivacy and can import and convert (to the best of its abilities) uBlock-style lists.

The problem with the declarative API is that 1) it’s just not as flexible as uBlock, especially in a world where billions are being poured into bypassing blockers and 2) each blocker extension is limited to 50k rules which is not enough (some apps work around this by registering multiple blocker extensions, but frankly this limitation is BS and should not exist to begin with) and 3) blockers don’t run with the browser, so you have to open the app every so often to update the blocking rules.

lol768
>What makes Safari so bad in your eyes?

The rendering engine is poor. It's probably the browser I have the most trouble with when doing frontend work. iframe scrolling is broken, it's historically suffered from some frustrating flexbox bugs (see https://github.com/philipwalton/flexbugs#flexbug-11), its Can I use... score lags behind Firefox and Chrome. For a while, it didn't support service workers properly.

I could go on.

sneak
Please do not confuse MobileSafari, an application with features, and UIWebView/WKWebView, a rendering API.
ToniCipriani
Having a hardware keyboard. I just can't get away with it so I'm still using my 3 year old BlackBerry Priv.
walterbell
Blackberry KEY2 is quite good, with timely security updates from both BB and Google.
ToniCipriani
Until that keyboard breaks. Quite a few reported issues for both the KEYone and 2 where the space bar and fingerprint reader just stops working, thanks to TCL build quality. And they are terrible with upgrades, KEYone only got Oreo, and certain versions didn't even get that upgrade at all, in particular the CDMA version, both locked and unlocked.
Eiriksmal
I've heavily typed on a Key1 and Key1 Black Edition since their respective launches and haven't had any hardware problems. Both phones have been very durable and CPU performance hasn't seemed to degrade over time.
apotheosis
Custom keyboards - on iPhone, long-pressing the mic button in Gboard has to run as a separate app instead of integrating directly into the keyboard. Also on iPhone "secure" screens (that use logins and passwords) never yield to 3rd party keyboards; instead they always revert back to the iPhone keyboard.

Browser plugins - as you pointed out, browsers on iPhone are not allowed to run plugins, so no ad blockers in the traditional sense - you can install a system-wide ad-block engine.

scarface74
Not allowing third party keyboards for passwords is a security feature.
youeeeeeediot
Change the display size and also decrease font size far smaller than iPhone allows.
clarkmoody
iOS has significant restrictions in the realm of Bitcoin wallets compared to Android.
LeoPanthera
I didn't know that. I've been using Bread/BRD wallet on my iPhone for a few years. What are the restrictions?
minikomi
Termux and Emacs on the go has made me never want to go back to iOS. Orgmode capture templates for everything synced by git is my favourite note taking solution.
cabaalis
Primarily the custom launchers. But to be honest, the novelty of that is quickly waning with all these "Hey, how'd you like Home Depot?" notifications that I can't turn off without crippling the android experience. NOYB, that's how I liked it. I'm probably going to be in the market for an iPhone next time around.
neogodless
What app gives you those notifications? What do you have to disable to stop them?

(I haven't seen them so I assume I already have whatever turned off, though I'm not sure what experience I'm missing out on!)

cabaalis
Stock google maps. It appears from the comment above they can be disabled. My problem with it is that google maps is not open, I did not ask google maps to send me to home depot. It just detects that I'm there and asks for a review.
batiudrami
If you slide the Google Maps notification to the right, a settings gear will pop up. From there you can disable some or all Google Maps (or any other app) notifications by category, so you still get the ones you want.
LeoPanthera
Run emulators (easily), as they are not allowed in the iOS app store.

That's pretty much the only thing that I am sad to miss using an iPhone. It's not enough to make me switch though.

sfifs
Basically if your personality is such that you like to adapt your environment to suit YOU, you'll probably hate iOS and Android is the way to go.

If on the other hand don't mind adapting your workflow to someone else's conception of design which many people find ok iOS will suit you.

Technologically, there's very little difference between top of the line Android and iPhone though you do get more interesting featuretrade-offs to choose from in Android (eg. Samsung Note 9 has a great stylus, Huawei P30 has by miles the best camera in any phone, Pixel is stock OS etc) - which again kind of links to personality.

davnicwil
One probably very niche thing is availability of a terminal along with full linux-y environment (including package manager for all the usual tools) on Android via the termux app. Pretty useful if you want to, for instance, make minor code changes (in vim or similar) or deployments on the go.

I googled around out of curiosity if such a thing exists on iOS and turned up nothing, which seems reasonable considering the more open nature of Android vs iOS - could be wrong about this though, happy to be corrected.

Arubis
iSH (https://ish.app/) works well for this, though it's in a public TestFlight beta currently.
davnicwil
Cool, thanks! Looks great, and I'm glad it exists because this is a useful enough thing that it might have stopped me switching to iOS, something I'm tempted to do for my next phone.
blissofbeing
I am not affiliated with these apps, I just use them all the time and are apps you probably won't be able to find apps like these on the app store.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.clownface....

- map the sides of your phone to actions like slide volume and brightness.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.synapse.al...

- batch your notifications to specific times of the day.

All in all I find android apps just offer more functionality for the power user.

kgwxd
Firefox with uBlock Origin. I'll never switch to a phone that doesn't support that combo. Super smooth scrolling and various other eye-candies are nice, but I'll sacrifice all of them, without a second of hesitation, for it.
jimmaswell
RTLSDR through the usb-c port is pretty cool, easier to manage music on an sd card, real FM radio (as far as I can tell from a quick google search, not available on iPhones), and much of the stuff others have mentioned
redhale
1) Notifications are much better. Taking direct action to read and archive/delete emails directly from the notification is great. Not sure if iOS has this yet, but last time I checked iOS Notifications were primitive by comparison.

2) Direct sharing to/from ANY app. iOS is frustratingly limited. On a similar note, being able to assign default apps for specific types of content.

nneonneo
Sharing is better now that there’s an actual Files app to manage documents. Sharing links and web stuff works fine across basically every app using that universal share button. Sharing to different people works great with airdrop (but do keep that limited while in public lest you get run over with incoming requests to send memes).

The default app thing could be improved for sure.

teniutza
I always found the iOS notifications to be a bit odd. I never owned an iPhone but my wife is now at her 4th. She always forgets she received a notification because she has a lot on her mind (she's a doctor and we have two kids) and all the notifications get "half dismissed" whenever she opens her phone (text, call, browse, whatever...). Somehow, it's assumed that when you open your phone you automatically have time or want to read all the notifications. They will not be shown again until you explicitly go into the submenu (pull from the top, I believe). I think that's not realistic. I like that on my Android phone the notifications stay there until I specifically clear them or interact with then (tap to go to app). They won't automatically disappear just because I want to see the cat meme my friend sent me...
sushid
There are two options for notifications in the Home screen. One removes the notification when you unlock your phone, the other requires you to manually remove the notification. Have her use the second option.
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Kuraj
1 is what I really miss, we only got notification grouping like last year lol
thirdsun
> 1) Notifications are much better. Taking direct action to read and archive/delete emails directly from the notification is great. Not sure if iOS has this yet, but last time I checked iOS Notifications were primitive by comparison.

This has changed but it's up to the developer to define the actions one can take on a notification.

> 2) Direct sharing to/from ANY app. iOS is frustratingly limited. On a similar note, being able to assign default apps for specific types of content.

The sharing popover is quite universal in iOS at this point and can be found basically wherever it makes sense.

jmhyer123
I too noticed and was very annoyed with the UI sluggishness of my Android phones (LG something or other and Samsung S7) but decided to give it one last chance. I picked up the Pixel 3 with stock Android and I've never looked back. It's smooth and fast and hasn't seemed to slow as time goes by which was a huge problem with my last two devices. There's such a huge difference between stock Android on decent hardware and "custom" Android (LG and Samsung both apply themes, among other things, to their Android flavors to make it unique) on any hardware, even the best.
Aeolun
You can detect wifi network strengths and channels with Android.
jeswin
In addition to the other things mentioned, like Firefox, launchers and Shell access:

1. Real multi-user, with fully separate profiles

2. Apps on SD card

3. Side loading

4. Connect to monitors on Samsung phones

5. Use USB-C card readers

6. Run torrents, run in the background

Arbalest
I forgot about the running in the background thing. Arguably a strength and a weakness, depending on what's actually running.
bekman
Where i live most people use android and it's hard to transfer files via Bluetooth. I wish ios support universal Bluetooth protocol.