Apple iOS and Android are the leading operating systems in the smartphone arena. Since Android is an open platform, manufacturers have been able to adopt Android with ease and spend more time on developing features instead, thereby resulting in a wide variety of features unique to specific Android models.

Let's take a look at some cool features of Android that turned as the biggest advantage of the Google's operating system.

Custom Read Only Memory (ROM):

A cell phone's operating system is called as a ROM. A custom ROM can bring a wide assortment of improvements to an Android phone. For example, one can install their version instead of the one that comes with the phone. Custom ROMs also add features that are not available on official firmware such as FM radio and Wi-Fi tethering which turns your phone into a wireless hotspot. All these make custom ROMs one of the biggest advantages of Android OS.

App Integration

True app integration makes life easy when using SMS, custom phone, voicemail on an Android device, which sometimes one won't find on the more locked-down iPhone platform.

A nice example is Google Voice. Google Voice is now available on iPhone too, but it won't work as smooth as in Android. iPhone apps always direct a user to the default dialer and visual voicemail apps, so one wants to use Google Voice full time, he has to manually navigate himself.

On Android, apps like Google Voice integrate directly with the operating system. So one wants to make calls with Google Voice, every call made from the phone's dialer goes via Google Voice. For instance, when a user clicks a phone number in his browser or in Google Maps, it goes through Google Voice instead of sending him to the wrong dialer.

Flash

There is a lot of debate going on whether we need to go for Flash or HTML 5 and Apple hitting out at Flash for eating battery life on iOS devices. But, as of now, one cannot view websites in full swing without Flash. Flash is necessary to view fully Flash web sites, watching Flash video and having Flash helps user have access to a lot of things that otherwise wouldn't have possible.

Controlling Phone From PC

There are a few apps in Android that allows a user to control his Android phone from a PC. In iOS, yes one can definitely VNC his iPhone, but it will not be the same as using a separate app.

App Installation

In iOS, if one wants to install an app he has to either download it from App Store or plug it into iTunes to sync them. But with new Android Market, or with third-party sites like AppBrain, a cool app can be installed instantly just by hitting the install button.

Smartphone Android Electronics Android