So Android versus iOS, Windows versus Mac, AirPods versus Galaxy Buds, even Apple Watch versus Galaxy Watch. These are some of the biggest rivalries in tech, but none of them actually matter. At least not compared to the biggest of them all, which is not a product, it’s not a software, it’s actually the war between the ecosystems. Samsung ecosystem and Apple ecosystem. Even if the Apple Watch was undisputedly better, why would I buy it if it wasn’t compatible with my Samsung phone? Or even more than that, if I could get extra features within the Samsung ecosystem. You see, you can no longer just compare one product to another without factoring in the entire ecosystem.
This walled garden that the companies have created to make the experience within better and to make the departure tougher. Now I wanted to dig a little bit deeper, so I collected some of the main hardware in each ecosystem, and for comparison, we started with the basics. Now, I’m not gonna dive really deep into which device is better because I have individual videos on all of that, but the devices we used to really test out this ecosystem include, of course, the phone. The center of any ecosystem, the phones we used here were the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the top of Samsung’s lineup, and the iPhone 14 Pro, in my opinion, the best of the iPhone lineup.
Then we had the watches which are easily the most isolated device out of all of the ecosystems where they’re actually not cross-compatible at all. And then of course we have earbuds which is of course a very core part of an ecosystem but these are probably the least walled out of anything in these so-called walled gardens where the AirPods do work with Samsung and the Galaxy Buds do connect with iPhones but you won’t get the full spectrum of features. And then of course, laptops. While many people don’t view this as a part of the ecosystem, it absolutely is. The earbuds seamlessly connecting between your phone and your laptop within that ecosystem is a huge win in my opinion, and even further than that, the ability to transfer files and photos really seamlessly between devices just makes the workflow so much easier. And then the last device here is tablets.
Now, not everybody uses a tablet, but with a laptop, especially if you travel and you want a second display, a tablet really goes a long way here. And again, the ability to share things seamlessly with your laptop is just another reason that being in an ecosystem is so much better. So those are the devices that I wanted to use in this comparison. But as far as the actual special features and apps in comparing the differences between ecosystems, the first thing, as I kind of already alluded to, was file sharing. Whether that is on your phone, your laptop, your tablet, sending files and photos, of course, as well, between different devices can be done on both of them. I think a lot of people are familiar with Apple’s AirDrop, and the benefit here is that iOS is really popular here in the United States. So sharing photos is super easy, not just within your own ecosystem, between your MacBook Pro and your iPhone, but also with other iPhone users as well without losing quality in your photos.
So you’re not gonna have to text them. You don’t have to get Google Drive and share links. It’s easy. Many people don’t know, Samsung has several versions of this as well. Within the Samsung ecosystem, you have Samsung QuickShare, which is fantastic for, again, if you have a Samsung Galaxy Tab, or if you have like a Galaxy Book Ultra like I have here and you want to send files between them, Samsung Quick Share is super easy. But there are some other advantages of using Samsung. One is that you can use Nearby Share with pretty much any Android device out there. And really the big one is that they also have link sharing options as well, which allow you to have a temporary link. I think it lasts usually 24 hours and you can share it with even your iOS friends as well. Now the next one is a very distinct advantage of Apple that we don’t see with Samsung, at least not to the same degree that we see it on Apple, and this is Continuity Camera. Now, I’m sure Samsung’s developing this. Maybe by the time you’re watching the video, it may already be out, but Continuity Camera is absolutely huge. I have been on so many video calls where whoever I’m meeting with compliments the video quality. They comment on it and say, wow, how is your video quality that good? And it seems like I have a DSLR, a professional camera in front of me, but really I’m just replacing my webcam with my iPhone and on my Mac it just connects to it wirelessly and as long as my iPhone is pointing at me from behind my Mac or really anywhere for that matter, it’s gonna work just fine.
Something that Samsung however does, especially with the flagship phones that we don’t see on Apple, is Samsung DeX. The ability to use this as a complete desktop interface when you plug it into a monitor, a TV, a projector, whatever, is something that Samsung’s done really well for a really long time that Apple just never decided to add. Personally, I think it’s really useful, but you can leave a comment and let me know what do you think about Samsung DeX? Is it a useless gimmick, or is it something that you really need to have in your phone? But speaking of desktop interfaces, the ability to work between different devices is also a really big advantage. I mentioned before being able to use an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy Tab as a second device next to your laptop is really nice. Like having a second monitor is great, but you can do even more than that. Apple calls this universal control. The ability to move your mouse between your iPad and your Mac and your MacBook and all the different Mac devices and just kind of click and drag things between them, gives you this universal control, as they call it, of course, that you can really use things to a different degree, not just as a second monitor, but as a distinctly second device with the same keyboard and the same mouse.
But Samsung has an even more interesting configuration here where they allow you to use this even with your phone. You can have your Galaxy phone sitting next to you, drag your mouse over to your phone and use it on there as well. The next category is device tracking and management, and this of course is going to be not just the main things like your watch and your earbuds, but also peripheral devices. We’ve got smart tags, you can get with either one of them, from AirTags to the GalaxyTags, and that gives you a really convenient way to keep tabs on where your keys are, your luggage, your backpack, you know, whatever, things like that. So Apple, of course, has Find My, which is their app, which allows you to find any of those devices. And the unique advantage here, again, is that because iOS is so popular, the Apple network is very large. And so even if your AirTag is not near your phone, if it’s near somebody else’s iPhone, their location will be anonymously used to report back to you where your AirTag was last seen. Now, besides AirTags and devices, Find My is also really useful for meeting up with friends or keeping tabs on location for your family members, but Samsung has their own analog of this as well called SmartThings Find. Now SmartThings has the unique advantage of integrating with a wider variety of Samsung IoT devices. Samsung, kind of a theme throughout this this video and in general with Samsung, is that they make many many many more devices. They make different SKUs of everything for different colors, different sizes, different prices, and so the Samsung ecosystem still has this essentially equivalent of Find My, but you’re able to locate many different things and have them all in one app, including security cameras, smart locks, different things that Samsung makes, and they all work really well together. And then of course, the voice assistants.
Now I’m not going to compare Apple’s, you know what, I’m not gonna say the names of them, I don’t want triggers, but I’m not gonna compare Apple’s to Samsung’s, they both exist. I’m not a huge fan of either one of them. I think Apple’s is maybe marginally better, but a huge advantage of Samsung is that you can replace it with Google Assistant. So I do that with all of my Samsung devices, and it gives you a smarter, more complete assistant, in my opinion, and I really like having that. Next up, we have the mobile payment ability. So of course Apple has Apple Pay, and with this you’re getting the unique ability to, at least in the United States, add some cool features on there. Not just payment methods, not just tickets, but also things like a driver’s license and identification. So if you go out and don’t have your wallet, you can actually just use your iPhone or your Apple Watch. And so this is going to be obviously still in development. Not everywhere has this, but really an interesting feature. And Samsung, on the other hand, has their own unique advantages as well. Specifically, older Samsung devices had something called MST, which was a really cool technology. I’m so sad they got rid of it. So even the oldest, like, swipe card reader, if that’s all it had, not even a chip, just a swipe card reader, you would hold your watch near it, it would send out a signal, or essentially a series of magnetic pulses, and you could pay just with your Galaxy Watch. As far as smart home control goes, this is a big advantage for Samsung, in my opinion. Being such a large company, they make so many different devices that you’re able to do a lot more with a Samsung ecosystem. For example, you can have a Samsung refrigerator, a Samsung dishwasher, microwave, all these things can connect to your phone.
Personally, I don’t need my fridge to connect to my phone to tell me how cold it is or when the doors open. But if you’re in the Samsung ecosystem, you can do that. It’s native on the phone already. Whereas if you have an iPhone and then like a Samsung fridge, and if you care about that, then you are going to have to get another app. If it seems like we’re getting down the rabbit hole, let’s go back to one of the core really issues between these two ecosystems. And that is messaging. Probably the biggest tug of war between Android and Apple right now is their messaging. Android’s pushing so hard to get Apple to adopt RCS. Apple is just obviously not doing it because they have iMessage and it’s one of the biggest parts of their walled garden that keeps people within the Apple ecosystem. So they have Apple iMessage. There’s also FaceTime and those, if you’ve ever used the Apple ecosystem, are honestly so convenient. Being able to call anybody and especially, like I said, here in the United States, being so prevalent, everybody has Blue Messages, everybody has FaceTime and it’s so easy to communicate with people and have group text and things like that. Of course you do have end-to-end encryption with that and it’s deeply integrated with the whole Apple ecosystem from the watch to the laptop to the tablet, everything uses iMessage. It works super well. Samsung on the other hand has caught up and they do have RCS so Samsung Messages has a lot of cool features, and if your friends also use Samsung, yeah, it’s definitely great, and it’s better to use Samsung Messages within a group of Samsung friends, and there’s also Google Duo. Now the big advantage here is that anybody can get Google Duo, even iPhone users can do that, but good luck convincing your Apple friends to download Google Duo to just essentially do what FaceTime already does. They’re going to tell you, why don’t you just get an iPhone? There’s also kind of an underlying theme. So Apple really pushes for continuity. You can see this in the Apple Home Pod.
If I’m playing something on my iPhone and I walk over and just tap the top, it’ll start playing on that speaker instead. Everything works really seamlessly and it feels like there’s one brain behind all of your Apple devices, which makes it a really easy ecosystem to use and adopt. And once you’re in, it makes it really hard to leave that. Whereas Samsung, on the other hand, really boasts their flexibility. They’re able to be more customized, you can have different devices that are all in that ecosystem, not just Samsung devices, but even within Samsung devices, you have the unique advantage of being able to buy a cheaper phone, buy other watches, buy other earbuds. There’s like five different Samsung earbuds on the market right now, where for Apple, there’s just two, three if you include the headphones. But deciding which ecosystem is actually better is more in-depth than just looking at the devices. Because one-to-one, the devices are really similar. They’re both great devices across the board, the AirPods, the Galaxy Buds, Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch, like they’re great devices on either side. But if you care a lot about flexibility and customization and the ability to choose other devices and really kind of choose what your ecosystem looks like, then of course the Samsung ecosystem is going to be better. Whereas the Apple ecosystem pretty much looks the same for everybody, but because of that they can make it more robust and more seamless as well. One last thing I want to mention is that many new apps are available on Apple first, for example Blue Sky, that like Twitter alternative, is only available on iOS.
But now since you enjoyed this video the next thing to do is to watch my iOS versus One UI comparison, essentially the operating systems of these two phones, to see some of the different features, the different strengths and weaknesses of each of them, again to help you decide which is actually the better ecosystem.
