Android vs iOS. Plenty of debates about this topic and plenty of opinions. So here's mine...
I can't help but consider which platform has the most solid engineering. Which platform is more refined for its purpose. Good engineering is evident in attention to detail. The virtues of consistently exceptional engineering are very difficult to instill and maintain in an organisation.
I've been to WWDC (many times) and to Google I/O (even spoke there) and my firm impression is that from an engineering perspective iOS is far more refined. I've had conversations with very smart engineers in both camps. I've attended and watched more WWDC and Google I/O video sessions than anyone should. There are loads of small points I've picked up from these discussions and sessions that make iOS the platform I have the most faith in - the one I believe is better engineered. I'm going to call out 2 of them...
1 - Battery life: It's like everyone at Apple who has ever written code for iOS has been brutally beaten with a "must preserve battery life" stick several times a day until they understood. It's almost impossible to have a conversation with an Apple engineer without them bringing up battery performance as a reason for some design decision or coding practice in iOS. It's like a nervous tick, but executed with confidence.
I recall speaking to Apple engineers at WWDC in 2008 who went into some considerable detail on how managing retain / release / autorelease for objects could have a positive effect on battery life. I recall the first WWDC session on how to use the accelerometer and the comparison of starting / stopping the accelerometer hardware compared to short and long term use. I recall sessions on why you shouldn't override drawRect: in a UIView subclass because it had some nominal yet demonstrable drain on battery.
It's really hard to instill this kind of attention to detail across an organisation - to get everyone thinking about the stuff that matters. Battery life matters. Android battery life sucks. Apple engineering has an incredible attention to detail that makes things like battery life not suck. Battery life is just an example of one area where Apple's superior engineering practices are evident to everyday users. It's really easy to screw up, it's really easy to cut corners and make devices that only last 19 hours on the best day you've ever had. Apple engineers don't screw up battery life and they work hard to make sure 3rd party engineers don't either.
2 - IDE: Xcode wins.
It's rare to be able to make such a forthright statement without need for justification, but I doubt anyone's going to argue. Xcode wins. From a third party developer perspective the richness of the system API's are pretty important, but it's not just what's in the technology stack and what API's one has available to them - it's how easily one can makes software that utilize them. Xcode makes it easy to create software for iOS. Documentation, static analysis, provisioning, instruments, etc. Xcode wins. It takes engineering discipline to make a product that rocks as well as Xcode.
Android and iOS both appear to be in "adding features mode". There's a big difference between adding features and adding features well. Adding features well requires an attention to detail for things like error handling, network latency and dealing with corner cases that few people ever considered.
In my experience engineering quality is consistent across an organization (at least at the macro level). It's rare to have a group of engineers turning out exceptional quality in the same organization as a group of engineers turning out crap. They are mutually opposing forces and one will destroy the other. So when I find a couple of areas where iOS has been engineered so well, I have considerable faith that all areas are developed almost as well or even better.
