By Andrew Cullen ’14 | Staff Writer

Since the dawn of time, mankind has asked many perplexing questions. How was the universe created? What is our purpose? Is the moon really made of cheese? Which operating system is better, Android or iOS?

And so began the controversial debate between Apple and Google’s smartphone software. Both of the operating systems have their ups and downs, but only one can prevail as the best. Apple and Google have put tremendous amounts of work into their mobile device software, but Apple remains supreme.

Both iOS and Android have the ability to do multiple things at once. This feature is known as multitasking. Back in the days of iOS 4, when the software was just learning to walk, multitasking on an iPhone essentially meant the app you were on paused itself while you switched to a different one. It was not true multitasking. Apple changed that with the new iOS 6 software, though. Apps can now refresh and perform tasks in the background.

Android has had multitasking for a long time. In the old days, Android had the edge on iOS in the multitasking field. A user could have multiple apps running at once, each doing their own thing in the background. Google managed to do one thing better than Apple. However, now that iOS has caught up in that department, it seems as if Android is struggling. Apple managed to make it so users can multitask while maintaining battery life. Android phones are notorious for having awful battery life, and the way the Android software handles multitasking does not help.

iOS and Android have vastly different learning curves. When Apple first made their software, it was simplistic, easy to use, and just generally intuitive. In the almost seven years iOS has been around, that has not changed. Android, on the other hand, is a lot less user-friendly. There are many complex things that Android can do, but this comes at the cost of intuitiveness. It takes a while to get used to using an Android phone.

One thing that Android does have over iOS is customization. There are so many options the user can adjust and tweak. You can really make your phone feel like your phone. Users can install widgets to the home screen for easy access to things like mail or text messages. Shortcuts to specific apps can be added to the lock screen for quick access. It is even possible to completely change the theme of your phone by installing a custom Android launcher. iOS is much less customizable. The only thing a user can really change is how their apps are arranged in the home screens. There are not nearly as many options in iOS as there are in Android.

One very important thing to have in an operating system is security. It would be absolutely terrible to spend $200 on a shiny new smartphone just to have it bricked by a computer virus. Android phones are especially vulnerable to computer malware. The Android software has more security issues than iOS. There have been countless stories of new Android viruses that infects users’ phones. Android, unlike iOS, allows for users to download applications from outside the central Google Play store. Because of this, software developers with bad intentions can make malicious software on the internet for people to download. The Google Play store is also much less secure than Apple’s App Store. Google does not really carefully inspect every app that comes into the marketplace. As a result, it is easy for malware to sneak in. The way iOS is designed is that it does not allow for things to be downloaded outside of the App Store. Apple spends time examining every app that comes into the App Store for malicious code. There are also many security measures that are built into the software that make it harder to hack the phone.

In my humble opinion, iOS is much better than Android. Apple’s software trounces Android in most categories. The only thing Android really has going for it is customization. Features in iOS like security and user-friendliness make it a much better choice than Android.