ICS vs iOS 5.0

7 days after Apple released it’s highly anticipated iOS 5 on October 12, 2011, Google announced it’s another sweet treat by name Ice Cream Sandwich, the first unified version of OS for tablets and smart phones, in succession to Gingerbread and Honeycomb on October 19, 2011.

Now, as both are launched and a significant time has passed to experience their features, the question arises as to which is the best.

The major issue comes that where they can work on. While iOS works only on Apple products, which is not the case with Ice Cream Sandwich.  Ice Cream Sandwich’s operating system is an open source OS, and it can easily run on any third party phones and tablets.

User Interface: 

To start with user interface, iOS aims at simplicity and any naïve user can grab an iOS 5 based Apple products and get going.  For Android, its quite opposite.  For someone who already knows their way around, it’s simple. But when you start, you might have to go through a couple of extra menus to get to the thing you need, however, it’s a lot more flexible than the iOS.

Voice Assistant:

Apple released its voice assistant service, siri, which is a really creative thing that provides users a totally different experience, and become the focus of the smartphone field. However, after the first few month’s fresh, I don’t think people will speak to their smart phone on the street.

Voice assistant appeared on Android system long before. But due to the limitation on content, voice assistant on Android is far behind iPhone 4s’s Siri. Even though Android’s voice assistant also has a nice performance. It can help you to make a call, send SMS, open GPS, play music and take a note and so on.

Gaming:

When it comes to games, iOS 5 gives a better experience than ICS. This is not only because iOS has its own Game Center, but also because the hardware of the devices. For example, the new iPhone 4s has dual-core Graphics processor, while in Android phones; only Samsung Galaxy nexus is comparable. In Android 4.0, we only find the new 3D driver

Browser:

 Both ICS and iOS 5 have beefed up there browser capabilities in own respect. ICS uses chrome based browser and iOS uses Safari. ICS chrome has got features like Google chrome bookmarks sync, incognito window and also a useful feature of offline web page caching for offline reading. Apple has got Reading Lists that allow you to save web pages to read later but however it does not support offline caching of web pages as does ICS. But an interesting thing Reading Lists does is it syncs across all your iCloud enabled devices. iOS 5 added tabbed browsing which was added to Android tablets since Gingerbread.

Near Field Communication:

Android Beam takes the notion of NFC even further by allowing data transfer between compatible devices just by tapping their backs and ofcourse for the mobile payments. However, iOS 5 did not include any NFC technology.  Several analysts said Apple won't be hurt by waiting to deliver an NFC-ready iPhone.

Customization:

 For the customization part, iOS really isn't customization without a jailbreak. Without a iailbreak, you will only be able to rename folders and change wallpapers, that's all. But when it comes to jailbreak, you can do several things like apply different themes, customize your lock screen, change names of Applicationsand much more. But with Android, you can do everything without doing anything at all. However, jailbreaking or rooting on Android is far more complex than on iOS Devices.

Facial login:

Apple still remains true to its good old 'swipe to unlock' screen gesture, while Android steps ahead with their new facial login capability. While Apple fans still swipe across that dainty touchscreen, Android users can flash those pearly whites to make their way across a locked screen.  Android really puts you 'into the picture'.

For me:

Hope this picture says what I want to.

Stay tuned. More to come...