Why is Apple IOS more user friendly than Android?

The title may sound like a commercial electronic product article that compares the differences between Apple IOS and Android, but I would like to discuss the economic intuitions behind this issue. On the market, apart from Apple, the majority fo smartphones are using Android as their operation systems, some manufacturers have made some amendations to the operation systems as well. Overall, the experience of using IOS, the iPhone operating system is nicer than the experience of using Android, at least this is my personal experience and opinion.

Though IOS can be updated without any charges and seem free, while the consumers buy their iPhones, they also buy the operating system as well and the operation system cannot be replaced by other operating systems. As IOS has a higher price than Android (IOS has a hidden price and Android is free and open), IOS has to have a better quality in order to be competitive. In addition, there is an imperfect information in the market of Android, that the developer of Android does not know the manufacturers of the smartphones. When there is an information asymmetry, the market outcome cannot be as good as the market outcome without an information asymmetry. However, for IOS, there is no such issue that IOS’s developer is also the designer of iPhone, the developer knows the perfect information about the smartphone. From this point of view, the smartphone designed by Google is likely to be more compliant with Android than other smartphones. Thirdly, IOS targets a much more limited range of products than Android, this makes the design of IOS can be more specialised. More specialised products are more likely to meet the requirements of their target demanders (in this case, smartphones and tablets).

To conclude, IOS is better than Android because it has to have a better quality to counter its price disadvantage and perfect information about its target products and more specialised design make it possible to develop a more user friendly operating system. Therefore, if in the future, Apple is trying to use the same operation system on more platforms, it is likely to reduce the compliance of its operation system.