Do operating systems affect perceptions of smartphone advantages and drawbacks?

One of the major decisions that prospective consumers of a smartphone have to make is choosing its operating system. Currently, the most prevailing operating systems are Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. This empirical study investigates if users of iOS and Android differ in their perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of smartphones. The paper examines smartphone possessors’ perceptions of the characteristics of their mobile phone use, when compared to consuming the same services via a computer. The main findings indicate that there were no significant differences between the users of the two operating systems with regard to the general characteristics of the smartphone as a mobile device. However, small differences were found in the perceptions of comfortableness and complexity of the devices. Only minor gender differences were observed. Plausible theoretical explanations, and implications of the findings, are discussed. This paper contributes to the informing science transdiscipline by providing insights regarding the effects of operating systems on users’ perceptions of their personal mobile information system.