Gaming Android Vs iOS

Anorion

Sith Lord
Staff member
Admin
Android first

  • Betas : on the iOS, the game first gets released in the Canadian app store, for a week, where it is tested before it is released anywhere else. On droids, distribution is not segmented, and the developer can release beta versions whenever they want, and even release daily builds. Daily builds are simply not possible on the iOS. This allows the developers far more latitude during testing, and allows them to get feedback that is simply not possible in a polished final release of a game. Ofc, there are games on iOS that evolved over time based on feedback, but this took time, the whole process can be skipped right in the development stage itself.
  • Cheaper games : the platform cut is competitively priced with apple, which means that many games are cheaper on the droids, as against the similar price on the istore. This is for one-off titles, and does not hold for titles with IAP.
  • It's hacked : it's not that the industry plays fair with us. one trend that is ruining gameplay is IAP. eagles in angry birds, coins in star dunk and lane splitter, decals and cars in forever drive, stars in asphalt... all take real world money. basically playing the full game involves playing for insanely long amounts of time (one of the ways they hook you), and even then you have to shell out for some items. You can never really "buy out" all aspects of the game, you have to keep shelling out more and more to keep playing. It's an incredible rush to play these games with infinite digital currency. Not recommended on any titles, some ban your account and device for having an IAP cracker. If you sneak past tho, you get to pwn the leaderboards and its a ton of fun. Again, not that this is not possible on iOS but doing it with droids is much easier.
  • Relatively uncensored content : the droid marketplace has some gems that would not survive apple's filters for various reasons. There are copycats on both stores, but a lot more on droids. A handful of droid titles are far more refined, expanded and better versions than the iOS titles they are copied from (eg Unicorn Dash vs Robot Unicorn Attack)
  • Compatible with pc : ever since Play was available on chrome, some titles are playable on pc. Suddenly, a bunch of titles you could play on your mobile, are playable on the computer as well. This means if you are hooked on to one game, you can play it on a tab at office, at home, while traveling, and while your mobile is charging. You need separate versions for iOS titles on iPads and Mac Books most of the times, and then only a handful of these titles are available on droids and PC-via-chrome as well.
  • Timely updates : a developer has a lot of control over when updates hit the market. In the iOS ecosystem, every single update has to go through apple's approval process. Now while both android and iOS games can be "patched" with delta updates (few games use this), only the droids have the luxury of receiving substantial build updates of existing apps without an approval process from the app store. This means that, say if a game wants to release some content based on a holiday, or a film release, then it can do so with much more control over the dates of this release, rather than wait for the randomly timed approval process on apple (the updates go live whenever approved lol).
  • Larger screens : having the option of larger screens makes a diff on some titles, especially racing games (eg: asphalt), or games with lot of buttons, text and menus (eg: Dark Legends). the racing titles are brutal on the iPhones once you go there after playing the same titles on droids with larger screens.

Ok now iOS

  • Game Center : it's like a multiplayer environment across games. You can trade items, compare progress and team up. It's as if all games plugged into GC on the iOS is one massive online multiplayer. Just fire up any game, and it usually has a GC component, so you can see what your friends are playing, and keep up with the latest games. This idea was so successful that there is even Open Feint, an alternative to GC. Then some studios have their own networks such as Plus+. Haven't come across this kind of a network of gamers for droids. Ok who has heard of scoreloop.
  • More control : compare playing skyball on droids with dark nebula on an iOS, slight changes in your hand make sufficient changes to the device. this holds for motion, as well as touch. Some gesture heavy games such as project 83113 work well on only some droids. No problem on say a device like the arc, but most of these games wudnt even start up on the lower end droids. The difference is easily noticeable on a touch sensitive game : orbital, this seems to be something to do with the way the touch behaves. The signals sent to the device rarely ever point to a wrong spot in iOS, but they do very frequently on droids, especially slight jerks when you release your fingers from the screen.
  • Less bugs and glitches : hardware / software to blame maybe, but at least you dont need to turn background processes off to play
  • Screen is easier to look at : this is sure to seem like a small factor, but if you spend a long time touching a screen, the slight distance between the finger and the surface of the screen starts bugging you. The iPhone screens are closer cut, which means your eyes spend a little less time looking at that irritating gap between the surface and the screen.
  • No phone calls : Unless you live in a black hole, or a Faraday cage, the only way to avoid a call interrupting your world record high score on ninjump or fruit ninja is to use an iPod.

even though iOS has a bunch of unique titles and a lot of variety, for all the big releases, and cross platform titles, droids actually have an incredible edge. It becomes crucial to have a droid to be in on the newest titles, before anyone else. Don't take this the wrong way, for most people, iOS has much more to offer in terms of casual titles, good gameplay, but for the -ahem- strange new world of pro mobile gaming, if you know exactly what you are doing and when you need to stop playing the titles once they release, droids are the way to go.

so how close was the assessment to your experiences ?

pls to add thoughts/ comments
 

Zangetsu

I am the master of my Fate.
For me it will be always iOS on top of Android...

Android throws 1GHz proccy speed & Mali/Adreno/PowerVR GPU for 3D rendering
but the iOS graphics is optimized so well that it looks brilliant on the 800Mhz ipod touch.
ipad is on par in graphics & gaming (no match).

the only difference I see is some games are free for android while the same are paid for iOS.

Once a user dives in iOS gaming he will forget Android gaming (that's for sure)


Yesterday I tried one app 3D Card builder...its really marvelous in terms of Car customization in 3D.Graphics is also brilliant.
 

pramudit

Gaming hardcore
i would choose android over ios. even if ios is better(less lags and all) almost all games on it are paid whereas on android they have free demo or ad-supported version. So i would like a laggy andoid full of games rather than ios with just 1or2 games...
 

daksh

Journeyman
Nice write up , thumbs up :)
For gaming definitely Android>iOS -
1. Screen estate . I cant see how is it possible to play games like modern combat or ME infiltrator on a 3.5 inch device , where as in Android you have the choice to pick a screen size which suits you , and if you want to game the more the merrier .
2. Power . With Android you have the flexibility to choose a phone with gaming friendly chipset . Like choosing Tegra 3 will entitle you to special tegra 3 versions and games with enhanced gadgets and if you are intro rooting and stuff then chainfire will let you have all games on decent enough handsets . Not saying that 4s is underpowered , I know about the power of 543mp.
3. Timely updates - Another major factor .
4. One thing you missed and I noted that there are very few reviews for games and apps in the appstore whereas almost everyone who buys posts a review in the playstore and you can see reviews from the same model or same version also , this really helps a person know how the game is and how does it work on you phone also if it has any bugs or not .
5. The wide variety of decent free games over ios.

Those were factors to be considered by everyone , for me screen size pwns everything else .
 

ujjwal007

Lost in games
iOS NO doubt I LOVE to play games on my ipad 2 its just amazing i can find all types of games itunes is the biggest store in world !! graphics are stunning and......a huge collection endless games just lovin it ^_^
 

ujjwal007

Lost in games
Ios for its nice game's and battery life?
Android for everything else

buddy i got 15 hours easily on my ipad with medium brightness :) amazing battery life my bro have samsung galaxy note i played gta ||| on his note for 3 hours and battery drained in just 5 hours
 

daksh

Journeyman
Youre comparing a phones battery life to a tablets ? :\ A phone constantly has to stay on a signal , not the case with a tablet unless its not 3g . Play infinity blade 2 on your ipad for 3 hours and it will also die very fast .
 

ujjwal007

Lost in games
Youre comparing a phones battery life to a tablets ? :\ A phone constantly has to stay on a signal , not the case with a tablet unless its not 3g . Play infinity blade 2 on your ipad for 3 hours and it will also die very fast .

but buddy tablet have a 2x bigger display then phone apples battery life is really awesome :D i played real racing 2 hd for 5 hours and still i had left 20-30 % battery but i played that on low brightness :) i found my ipad battery more powerful then my nokia e7 :D
 
OP
Anorion

Anorion

Sith Lord
Staff member
Admin
4. One thing you missed and I noted that there are very few reviews for games and apps in the appstore whereas almost everyone who buys posts a review in the playstore and you can see reviews from the same model or same version also , this really helps a person know how the game is and how does it work on you phone also if it has any bugs or not .
5. The wide variety of decent free games over ios.

actually iOS has far more reviews than droids atm, droids dont even have their own metacritic section, iOS does iPhone, iPod, and iPad Game Reviews, Articles, Trailers and more at Metacritic - Metacritic this is an aggregate score of reviews

In iOS there are price drops and new releases every hour, droids have had the same top apps forever... not nearly as much movement as the app store, yet.
 

daksh

Journeyman
I was talking about play store vs appstore reviews , which you get to see right from where you are downloading your app .
Play store has various amazing sales like the december sale last year had almost all good apps for 5rs , and when market was converted from market to playstore I bought various games on it for 12.5/25 rs
 
OP
Anorion

Anorion

Sith Lord
Staff member
Admin
I was talking about play store vs appstore reviews , which you get to see right from where you are downloading your app .
Play store has various amazing sales like the december sale last year had almost all good apps for 5rs , and when market was converted from market to playstore I bought various games on it for 12.5/25 rs

Wow 5 rs really? Missed that one. The lowest price on play drops below the one-dollar-converted-to-rupee mark
 

ico

Super Moderator
Staff member
Youre comparing a phones battery life to a tablets ? :\ A phone constantly has to stay on a signal , not the case with a tablet unless its not 3g . Play infinity blade 2 on your ipad for 3 hours and it will also die very fast .
yeah, the mAh rating of iPad 2 battery = ~5 times of an average smartphone.

And iPad 3 has almost twice the battery of iPad 2.
 

ico

Super Moderator
Staff member
Playing simple games like Cut The Rope and World of Goo is a horrifying experience on an iPhone. I actually think that iPhones are for people who haven't experienced evolution and have small hands.

Infact, these days I also find Galaxy Note small. How big screen does Note 2 have? 5.5"? That would do for me.
 
Top Bottom