There has been a lot of talk of late about which is better, the iPhone 4 or the Android. The only problem with this comparison is that the folks involved in these discussions are usually compairing apples to oranges. By that I mean that they are dealing with 4 different variables : Apples IOS, the iPhone 4’s hardware specs, the Android OS, and any number of phones running on the Android OS.

What usually happens with many opinions is that someone who has drunk too much of Steve Jobs’ Kool Aid (to the point that they would chose a hand crank rotery phone so long as it has an Apple logo on it) and then get their hackles up whenever someone so much as mentions Android.  They then step up on their pedistal to preach the merits of Apple, while calling down fire & brimstone on those who break the 11th commandment by blaspheming the name of Steve Jobs and worshiping the pagan god called Android.

So…. let’s look at a few of the talking points involved in this debate.

1) When the iPhone (or iPod touch) first came out, one of the biggest selling points was the multi touch screen and the interface for accessing and opening programs. Since that time however, that hardware spec has just about become the norm. That being the case, I think that this issue is a tie between the two platforms.

2) Now let’s look at the OS. Lifehacker recently compared both the both operating systems from the viewpoint of a power user (aspects such as tetheribg, battery life, multitasking, and such) and, while close, the Android devices beat out the iPhone 4 by a score of 13 to 11 with a tie in 4 catagories.

One of the catagories in which Apple beat out Android was a little misleading, however. That catagory is Battery Life. While the battery life of the new iPhone is superior to most Android devices, you need to bear in mind that not only does battery life vary between different Android devices, but many of them are designed for easy battery replacement by the user so carrying around a spare battery is not a bad idea.

3) Another area that needs to be compared is app availability. While it had been a week or two since I looked at any statistics, the iPhone clearly has more apps available at the present. One stat I read a few weeks ago stated that the Android market place had roughly 20% as many apps as those in iTunes, but was growing much faster. I can vouch for that as I shop the iTunes app store almost on a daily basis and have noticed a drop in new iPhone apps recently as the developers are spending time converting iPhone apps over to HD apps for the iPad instead of developing fresh apps as often as they once were.

4) The final but one of the most important areas that need to be explored when comparing Apple to Android is the philosophy behind how open the access is to not just the hardware APIs but the OS itself. While some feel that the tight grip Steve Jobs has on the release of apps makes the iPhone a better device because they are tested and pretty much guarenteed to work well with existing apps, I believe that it has more to do with Apple wanting a cut from every iPhone application that is sold and not due to any concern Steve has regarding application comparability.  What started out as an emphasis on what was best for users and the user experience has turned into what is best for Apple and their hold on market share.

UPDATE: PC Magazine recently ran a new article on this topic as well.  According to the numbers shared there, and ones Steve Jobs conveniently failed to point out in his keynote, Apple shipped 8.75 million iPhones last quarter.  Google activated 9 million devices in the same time period.  Not quite the “we rule the world” picture from Steve’s slideshow.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]