> Social media apps? The iOS variants of those apps are afaik in no way better. What else is there, where is the advantage?

This is incorrect. The IOS versions of social media apps extract way less data from the device than on android, and is thus more privacy friendly.

Sure the best way would be for people not to use them, but if you "have" to, then it's better to use those on IOS.

> In which category are there better iOS apps?

Almost all of the prosumer apps on iOS offer a consistently better experience. This is maybe less relevant on phones than on tablets, but music production, video editing, digital painting and drafting, etc...

Camera apps.

Everything else I agree with, but the Android camera APIs do not allow developers to build good device independent camera apps the way they are available on iOS.

>I don't see any iOS advantage with the apps anymore. That was maybe true in the very beginning, during the gold rush time of the app store. But not since then. In which category are there better iOS apps?

I researched iOS vs Android last year so some of my info may be out of date but this is what I collected.

Apple iOS exclusives (or earlier app versions because devs prioritized iOS):

  ChatGPT iOS app -2 months before Android
  Sora -2 months before 2025-11 Android
  Bluesky iOS app -2 months before Android (February 2023 iOS invitation-only beta; April 2023, it was released for Android)
  Blackmagic Design camera 2023-09-15  -9 months before Android  2024-06-24
  Halide camera app  https://old.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/17klq40/what_are_some_good_examples_of_iphoneexclusive/k7efznt/
  Zoom F6  https://zoomcorp.com/en/us/software-product-page/software-sub-cat/F6-control-app/   https://apps.apple.com/us/app/f6-control/id1464118916
  Godox Light    https://www.diyphotography.net/godox-finally-launches-android-app-for-the-a1-but-only-for-some-phones/
  ForeFlight Mobile   https://support.foreflight.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004919307-Does-ForeFlight-Mobile-work-on-Android-devices  https://old.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/1883eya/the_authoritative_answer_to_why_isnt_foreflight/
  Adobe Fresco
  Procreate
  FlexRadio SmartSDR SSDR  2023-10-27T13:15:09+00:00  https://community.flexradio.com/discussion/8029186/smartsdr-for-android-device

  TouchDRO for milling
  Kodi media player

  Amazon Fire Stick, car infotainment, music workstations, sewing machine GUI, geology soil tester, etc

The iOS YouTube app is not worse than the one in Android. Texting in iOS is arguably better or, at the very least, there is one more app to choose (Messages). And I’m curious to know what makes Antenna Pod so much better than the thousands of other podcast apps out there.

Social media apps have historically been worse in Android, because of lax app and privacy controls.

> What else is there, where is the advantage?

Personally, I’d rather not have Google buried deep inside all aspects of my phone.

For one, I can actually use gesture controls without constantly triggering backswipes. Even something as droll and first party as Google Photos suffers this problem, where, say, cropping a photo and pulling too close from the screen edge will result in a backswipe detection instead.

Another example is Sonos, where the iOS app contains TruePlay to tune your speakers. They can do this because there is relatively few iPhone models (microphones). But this is a general, noticeable trend, where developers will add more / better / polished features to the iOS app.

iOS has less device models to target for. This makes it easier to support and deliver a more consistent experience, especially for gaming. I have also heard a few other points back in the day, but I am not sure how true they are now. One is that some social media apps might offer better quality in app camera experience. Another is that iOS userbase is more willing to spend money so devs are more likely to target iOS.

The iOS version of most social media apps is better. IOS simply has better API integration to it's hardware, where with android, many OEMs (hell this was even the case to a certain extent with older pixel phones), do a number of things that make the hardware not as easily accessible as quickly from the OS API for said feature.

This is especially relevant for the camera, but also various other sensors and hardware modules that exist inside these phones.

That said, in recent years there are just a number of other areas that android is much better at such as deeper AI integration, which goes back to even prior to the current LLM craze.

This is a really ideology driven push. I don't think you really think the iOS browsers are worse, there's just less choice, because they all fundamentally use WebKit. Having to use Chromium is a worse experience, and not being able to use Gecko under Firefox is not a clear upgrade - particularly as WebKit is so tightly integrated with the hardware, leading to less battery use. If you really don't like WebKit for whatever reason, I get it. But that's not worse.

Whenever there is an app with full feature parity (WhatsApp) you assume at best it can be equal, based on nothing. You have specific apps that work for you, and that's great, but my practical experience is much different: whenever I haven't had a choice in an app (think banking apps, carrier apps, local library apps, the Covid apps) the experience has been much better on Apple. Whenever there is a choice in apps, they're often cross-written in something that allows easy porting, and very similar, or the native Apple solution is much smoother. It's rare that an app just feels better on Android, and usually limited to cases where a specific app is only available on Android or, you know, Google.

The YouTube app on iOS is superior to the Android app for one

> I assume worse

You know what they say about assuming.

sorry this is not correct. (do you consistently use both?) iOS apps are consistently better, because people prefer using swift

Honestly, you’re so wrong about the app situation that it’s almost staggering. iOS apps tend to be more stable, better polished, have better integration with system features (like the Dynamic Island), and even often have more features. This isn’t even an unfounded opinion, it’s a material problem for Google and led them to vastly investing in automated testing and quality efforts

App addressable user base is another problem for Google, one that they have mentioned in developer conferences. It’s a big part of why they’ve been trying to ship a tablet and unify android and Chromebook. If Google isn’t careful they could find themselves in a downward spiral situation, stuck between apple on one side, and android forks on the other.

And the last answer is, as always, money

- browser is deemphasized on iOS, and so it’s weaker feature set matters less

- iOS is generally easier to develop for because of less device differentiation

- on average iOS has significantly wealthier users who tend to be higher return or paying customers (seriously, look it up). This in turn leads companies to invest more heavily in iOS.

- easier integration due to a narrow system services ecosystem (no Google vs Samsung slapfights)

- unified platform advantage (apps written for iOS easily port to the watch and tablet, unlocking larger markets, and justifying greater spend in developing apps)

- apples review process is significantly stricter (for better or for worse)

Yes, Apple doesn’t have something like fdroid, and that’s really disappointing and honestly a legitimate dealbreaker for a lot of people