Apple iOS 4.3 vs Android 3.0 Honeycomb

Apple's latest version of iOS platform comes with some interesting updates, but as we compare the new Apple iOS with Android 3.0, which is a tablet-centric OS, we’ll concentrate mainly on the ways in which iOS 4.3 enhances the iPad experience.

Apps and Media
One of the most touted changes from Apple’s marketing and PR teams has been the enhancement of the Airplay and wireless networking capabilities which is a feature present on iPad, iPhone and iPod.

Airplay is Apple’s wireless media streaming technology, which allows users to stream virtually real-time video, audio and photo images direct to Apple enabled TVs, a very snazzy and extremely useful feature which was introduced in iOS 4.2.

Version 4.3 has expanded Airplay to include streaming of web-based H.264 videos.

This feature certainly has a lot of potential but it’s important to note it has its limitations, most notably that web-based content can only be streamed if it is authorised by website developers via permission tags.

Apple has done its best to make permission tagging a relatively hassle free task for web developers but of course this makes no guarantees that what you want to stream will be stream-able.

Another new element of this feature for 4.3 is that it now allows you to stream self-made videos straight from the device, previously this required a video to be transferred to a computer and to be resynchronised first but Apple has now eliminated all the fuss.

Multi-tasking is a continual strength of the Android system and in this version it continues to get better and better as it has been boosted to be quicker and generally more user-friendly.

Honeycomb is more than capable of running high-end apps and content with good performance thanks to integrated OpenGL graphics acceleration and the Renderscript 3D graphics engine.

On iOS 4.3 the Apps interface has had a slight reshuffle, the Updates tab now has a series of large icons for your updatable apps which display little or no information, unfortunately, but instead have a peculiar ‘Installed’ button which, when pressed, takes you to the update page for that app.

It’s difficult to see this as a step forward or back, it simply comes across as change for change’s sake.

Browsers
Other tweaks to iOS include a souped-up ‘Nitro’ Javascript engine, which allegedly gives a boost to online use making it twice as powerful as in version 4.2.1 resulting in improved browser and web application performance.

The Android browser has, in the past, been something of an awkward beast but Google has made real efforts here and the improvements are considerable. Most importantly, the browser has had additional features pilfered from its Chrome heritage and now includes tabbed browsing.

It also supports Javascript and other plug-ins, plus the zoom and scroll functions have been, thankfully, enhanced.

Social Networking
Contact integration with Facebook, and to a lesser extent Twitter, plus support of native social networking apps have been standing features of both operating systems since previous versions, so in that regard they’re fairly equal.

However, on iOS 4.3 Location Services has received a revamp and is now quickly and easily accessible in the Settings menu.

It’s also been updated with the new Find My Friends utility, part of Apple’s MobileMe service, which pretty much does what the name suggests being essentially Apple’s alternative to Android’s established Google Latitude as a location-based social networking tool.

<< Previous 1 2 Next>>