IPhones Will Always Beat Their Android Counterparts Due To Better Optimization

We are seeing some advancements in mobile hardware. The OnePlus 3 itself for instance takes the RAM game up to 6GB while equipping the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 820. And just a few days back, there were reports of a smartphone with 8GB RAM ready to launch.

But should we always consider hardware improvements be relevant? In the PC Gaming side, it's a matter of software and hardware both. It's a case of APIs i.e DirectX 12 and Vulkan. And let us not even go in the depths of game engines being used. But this very thing is soon going to be standard in the mobile side as these advancements take place. But the question again arises, shouldn't software be given equal consideration too?

If you remember Google's I/O this year, you will see a lot of emphasis on chatbots or in this case Allo and "magical" video calling with Duo. Granted all these are great products but there was no word on performance improvements in Android N. Where is your main product, the highlight of all people's anticipation?

 And by performance, I mean real time performance not those on benchmarks or other paperwork. An average user will surely give it consideration but he will not be happy if the smartphone starts to slow down after some time.

And where do iOS devices fit into all this?

Let's start by the following video comparison:

So there you have it, OnePlus 3 aka the flagship killer has been exterminated by the IPhone 6s in a real life test which shouldn't even compete with it in the first place.

It's actual competitor is the upcoming IPhone 7.

 And before everyone start in the comments stating that you are comparing 2 different OSes then that is exactly the point. If Apple can optimize the performance and memory management of
You see IPhones come out each year and if I do a ground-up comparison between the CPUs and other hardware being used in the compared devices, Android is surely the winners.

And that is something we see from benchmarks too.

However the truth is IPhones are way more snappier in performance compared to their Android counterparts. The memory management is a lot better as it can be seen in the above video, OnePlus had to restart the demanding apps in the background. It's not just a problem on Oxygen OS I might add, I have personally used Nexus 5 and it is similar in this regard. And we are talking about stock Android here.

Features Are Not The Highlight Of An OS, Stability Is

IPhone 6s is powered with a Dual Core A9 Twister Chipset with an expected of 2GB RAM. While the OnePlus 3 features the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 paired with a ginormous 6GB RAM. From what we can conclude from the above benchmark, The phone's capabilities are not being utilized to its fullest extent which is the issue of optimization of the OS.

Android has a lot of features and I give kudos to it in this regard as it would most certainly make the iOS look dull if we go on a head to head comparison. But what is the point of overloading the phone with all those features when you can't solve the simplest of all problems in the Operating System. 

Who isn't familiar with the famous memory leak in Android 5.0 Lollipop and manufacturers had to bear the brunt of angry customers for something which was Google's fault.

Focus On The Smaller Details

Android and iOS have nearly the same apps in their respective stores. Both offer a great environment for their developers to make apps. Yet sometimes there are questions whether some app will run on his/her's phone or not. My friend's phone would lag sometimes and upon asking, I downloaded a "heavy" game recently. This matter also affects IPhones if the Storage is running low on older phones but to a much smaller scale. There are no clear guidelines or even minimum recommended reference phones on which the app would run smoothly.

Which leaves the user in a pickle to go to the interwebs to find out whether it will work or not.

When I was playing Brother In Arms on the Nexus 5, the phone would get uncomfortably hot. And this is not even up to the par with the likes of Asphalt 8 and N.O.V.A. Plus a flagship phone like that one shouldn't even break a sweat to run an app like that.

Future Of VR Depends On Optimization

While Samsung and Google have already stepped into the mobile virtual reality industry with Gear VR and Cardboard respectively, we need to improve the performance of our smartphones if we intend to enjoy a good experience in Virtual Reality gaming. We are talking about 30fps right now, soon we'll be talking about 144Hz displays and resolutions going sky high. But this will only happen if the resources of our phones are effectively utilized by the app being used. And not to give a message update.

Make Mobile More Mobile, Not A Work Laptop

I would never have any issue with more features on my smartphone. They are there to assist me of course. But stock Android features shouldn't be a burden on other apps which the user actually wishes to use. This is also a root problem of Samsung phones which is filled with bloatware. Stock Android is way better compared to that.

These are pretty much the reasons why I think optimization on mobiles are really important. What are your thoughts? Do you think the performance of Android is not an issue? Should Google address some other cause?