Originally Posted by thedrewser:
“The problem with comparing iOS and Android (in the smartphone market) is that iOS obviously is only used by one company on one type of phone - the iPhone, whereas Android is freely availble for all phone manufacturers to use if they so wish, so this inevitably means they'll have a larger number of users.
However, where Android falls down is the quality of the phones it's being installed in and the deifferent manufacturers user interfaces. It's like all the car producers using the same engine which may be top notch, but the quality between the finished cars will be huge.
I've only ever had an iPhone (it's my first smartphone) and am very happy with it, very few complaints. But, from reading phone reviews etc it does appear that some phones using Android are not actually that user friendly because of what the manufactuere has done to the phone.
The operating system itself won't make a phone into a great phone, there's more too it than that, so using sales figures or operating system user numbers is always going to give a false sense of satisfaction by users.”
The benefit of having android on a load of phones is that the user has choice. There is a handset for all budgets. Hence android can be used by all and sundry. The iphone is limited to people with a higher budget (however I am not sure about this, as I have seen people that are unemployed, taxi drivers, students have an iphone). This is not by any means a failure of android, as you suggest, its a huge positive.
As for the skins manufacturers install, this is down to user preference. You may like one manufacturers more than the others...this is human nature. I have only ever used a htc phone, and he Sense skin is very good. Not used any other manufacturers phone. Either way I have rooted my phone and installed a custom rom...so the skin doesnt really make much difference to me.
Some lower end phones will have a cheaper feel, mainly because they are cheaper. However the top end android phones are better than the iphone.