The competition between Google Android and Apple iOSis is one of the most talked after wars in mobile gadget platforms. The Google Android platform is increasingly becoming dominant in the smartphones and tablets market. Nokia, a once leading company in the mobile phone market, is slowly entering the smartphone market with a new range of Lumia smartphones powered by Windows 8 mobile as it phases out its range of Symbian powered smartphones. Equally, Motorola Mobility is trying to gain a share of the market by increasing its product portfolio of smartphones in the Droid family. The Android Operating System powers the Droid range of smartphones. Samsung is by far the largest mobile manufacturing company in the world with a full range of Android-powered smartphones in the Galaxy family. The recent entry of the Samsung Galaxy SIII heightened the competitive advantage of the Android Software Platform based on the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) software. With HTC, Blackberry OS, and Microsoft Mobile as a distant competitors, the war is clearly not among mobile phone manufacturers but the war is between software manufacturers, and in this case,Apple iOS and Google Android (Katie, 2012). Currently, the competition between Apple iOS and Google Android is so close such that it becomes difficult to tell the superior operating system (Ian, 2011). Undeniably, each mobile platform has its strengths and weaknesses.
Advantages of Android OS over Apple iOS.
For Consumers.
Devices running the Android Operating System are versatile such that the UI (User Interface) enables users to multitask functions and multiple purposes. The versatility enables users to perform two functions at a time without having to close other applications. On the contrary, the Apple iOS allows users to execute one function at a time and exit running applications when they need to open another application. The Android second advantage is that the Google Android OS supports several Social Integration and Google functionalities and apps such as Google Play, Gmail, Google Maps, G-talk, YouTube, and Google Plus.