There are a wide variety of reasons someone buys a smartphone. The one I've never fully understood was fashion. If you pick your phone because of how it looks or "what it says about you" sheesh! I'm going to answer the iPhone vs. Android question far more objectively. I'm also not going to recommend based on price, since you can get cheap, underpowered phones in both varieties. If you're on a budget, you'll still want to factor in the rest of the characteristics I'm about to discuss.

You should generally buy a smartphone because you want certain features. Make a list of all the features and if one type of phone has more, buy that. There is one issue with regard to Android security problems, but I'm going to skip that for now. You can read more about that in many other articles see below. See also: The two reasons I avoided Android and finally upgraded to the relatively boring iPhone 4S.

I got an interesting, warm, friendly email from a reader. In it, he says and I quote, well, except for the profanity part: Thanks for nothing. While most emails I get from readers are friendly, sometimes I do get the inappropriate, and yet strangely instructive messages. This is one of those.

It pointed out to me that in my first draft of this article, I missed stating an important point: Yes, I do rate certain factors below as better with Android or better with iPhone, but that's not the point. These two operating environments are both excellent, and this article is designed to help you choose one type of phone or another in the context of that base level of excellence.

Sure, I pick on both in my day-to-day article writing, but that's the job of commentary.

That's not the purpose of this article. This article is designed to help YOU make a decision. Not my decision, but yours. So, in this case, I'm not declaring that one is better than another. You need to pick what you want, given your needs and preferences. I chose an iPhone, in part, because I don't have time for tinkering and customizing. There were other times in my life that I would have gone with Android solely because of the customizability options.

So, not only do you need to choose a phone that meets YOUR needs, your needs now may be different from what they were, or will be. Choosing a phone is a deeply personal decision. This article is here to guide you, but what path you take is completely up to you. You're welcome. Let's start with the big reason I would have bought an Android phone, but didn't: Android phones support very high speed mobile broadband. I want high-speed mobile broadband, but since it's not available where I want it, that factor was no longer part of my equation.

Next, you need to decide how important a removable battery is. If it's essential, then your only choice is certain Android phones. You can add an add-on battery bulge to your iPhone, but it's a big add-on lump, not a replaceable battery. If you're okay with that, you could consider the iPhone. I like physical keyboards. I don't like them enough to buy a phone just for the keyboard, but I prefer them. Most smartphones only have soft keyboards, but a few Android phones still have physical keyboards. So if that's a must-do requirement, go for Android. By the way, I used to have a white-hot hatred for the iPhone's on-screen keyboard.

That's been mitigated a bit by Siri voice recognition, which makes entering information into the iPhone far less irritating. Both Apple and Android have voice recognition.

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Siri is the PR darling, but I've found it's relatively useless as a context-sensitive personal assistant. As a voice dictation tool, it works nicely, but so does the same basic functionality on Android. My family's mound of iPhone accessories is one of the big reasons I went with the iPhone 4S rather than an Android phone. The company also encrypts data in iMessage and its other apps. Apple prioritizes user privacy, so you can feel safe knowing your personal data is not stored or read by Apple.

It is all encrypted, too. Meanwhile, Android encrypts some data, but your privacy is less protected. Google mines your data for information that it can use to sell better ads and market products to you. Your data is also stored and read to provide you with a better A. Apple even went to war with the FBI to guarantee your right to encryption.

If you care about your privacy and security, go with an iPhone.

Open vs. closed

Many Android OEMs original equipment manufacturers also offer a way to unlock the bootloader, which determines how the operating system loads up on your device. Apple is completely opposed to this kind of thing. Jailbreaking is an option for iOS, which lets you download and install apps from outside the App Store and bypass some other limitations. The average iPad or iPhone owner spends more money on more things than the average Android device owner, and Apple has built up a great ecosystem of peripherals for its phones and tablets. This often means you have to splash out on an overpriced Apple adapter.

Another mark against Apple here relates to its abandonment of the standard 3. Of course, now some Android phones are axing the headphone jack in favor of USB-C audio, so this may not be a difference for much longer. Since Android phones are produced by many different manufacturers, product ecosystems vary. Samsung has a great ecosystem, for example, and Android phones have support from Home, Chromecast, and Android Wear.

Overall, taking all available accessories into account, you have more choice with an iPhone, so iOS takes the win here, but with caveats. Ultimately, different categories will be important to different people, so you should pay attention to the ones that count for you and make your decision based on that.

If security and privacy are an important factor, then the iPhone is the obvious choice. If battery life tops your list and you want to be able to customize your phone, then choose Android. Both Android and iOS are mature, feature-packed platforms with far more similarities than differences, and we can heartily recommend either.

How to decide: should you buy an iPhone or an Android phone?

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Markets closed. Simon Hill. Digital Trends January 17, View photos. Android apps: Story continues. Android Maps View photos. Recently Viewed Your list is empty. Historically, PCs and Macs have been far bigger targets for hackers and cyber crooks than mobile devices like iOS and Android smartphones. One reason is that PCs and Macs are inherently less secure, by design. Smartphones and tablets, on the other hand, emerged after security had become a major issue, and they were designed accordingly with that in mind. But Ross acknowledges that mobile threats will probably keep growing as people shift more of their digital lives to handhelds.

Phone makers, wireless carriers and individuals can custom-configure the OS. That compares to, well, nobody knows how many security vulnerabilities on Android in the same year. How could we not know? Because Android device makers like HTC and Samsung are free to customize the OS — changing default applications and even the interface — as they see fit.

Wireless carriers can also tweak Android and add apps. All of these changes can add vulnerabilities although, to be fair, some could also remove risks. You might wait for months, years or forever. According to Google, just Eight other versions, dating back to , are still in wide circulation — and most of those older editions are unpatched against security vulnerabilities that have emerged since their heyday.

The newly discovered Stagefright exploit appears to have scared the Android side of the industry into a response. On August 5, Google sent out the first of what will be monthly security patches to its Nexus phones and tablets sold in the previous three years. That means even people with devices running older versions of the operating system — going back to Android 4. LG and Samsung have also announced their intention to provide monthly security updates, though that requires coordinating with wireless service providers, which might complicate the matter.

• Android vs. iOS: Which smartphone platform is the best?!
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• Which One Is More Secure: Android or iOS??

The winner: While the operating system is the main target on mobile devices, malicious apps can also be vectors for attack. Apple seems to have an advantage because of its tight restrictions on app distribution.

Guarding against bogus apps

Their only real alternative to the App Store is to hack i. Doing so opens all kinds of security holes and could void warranty coverage. So, for example, hackers have found a method — called Masque Attack — that tricks iOS into thinking that booby-trapped versions of popular apps such as Facebook are the real thing. Two non-jailbroken iPhones. That company or agency itself would need to have been hacked for the booby-trapped apps to get in there in the first place.