Google isn’t the one ruining Android. It’s the apps you use every day

A recent report found that the US smartphone market is shrinking, and Android phones are taking the biggest hit. Despite rising prices and stock issues, iPhones continue to sell well while Android’s market share keeps slipping.

You can point to a lot of reasons for this, including Apple’s ecosystem advantages and features like iMessage. But one of the biggest reasons, at least in my opinion, is the inconsistent experience people still have on Android phones.

And that isn’t really Google’s fault alone. Brands like Google and Samsung have been pushing hardware boundaries while also improving and optimizing Android itself, yet many people still see Android as less polished compared to iOS. The real issue isn’t Android itself, but the apps we use every day.

Pick almost any flagship Android phone today, whether it’s the Oppo Find X9 Ultra, Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, or even the Google Pixel 10 Pro, and they feel on par with, if not better than, the iPhone in almost every hardware aspect. Battery life, charging speeds, cameras, displays, pretty much everything. Android phones, at least the flagship ones, offer hardware that’s at least comparable, if not outright ahead, in some areas.

And it isn’t even about the software experience anymore. I’ve used the Oppo Find X9 Ultra extensively over the last two months, and the OS has been rock-solid. In fact, my iPhone Air has actually been the one hiccuping more lately, especially during FaceTime calls, where I still notice occasional jitter and lag.

You’ll also notice that most first-party apps on these phones are properly optimized for the hardware. The camera app on the Oppo Find X9 Ultra, for example, fully takes advantage of the hardware capabilities. Samsung’s own Galaxy apps are another good example. The real problem is with the third-party apps we all use daily.

Android may be home to millions of apps, but some of the biggest ones still feel noticeably worse compared to their iOS versions. Instagram is a perfect example. The layout may look similar on both platforms, but the Android version still feels slightly less polished. A simple example is story uploads. Upload a story from an Android phone and compare it to one uploaded from an iPhone, and you’ll usually notice better photo and video quality on the iPhone version.

The same goes for X (Twitter). I’ve used the app across dozens of Android phones, and every now and then, the feed simply stops scrolling until I force close and reopen the app. I’ve rarely faced that issue on an iPhone. Features also tend to arrive earlier on iOS. X’s newer Timeline experience, for instance, has been available on iPhone for weeks while Android users are still waiting.

Another issue is that many apps continue to completely ignore Google’s design language on Android. Apple introduced Liquid Glass with iOS 26, and now many apps on iOS are already adopting that visual style, which makes the whole experience feel much more cohesive. WhatsApp recently started rolling out Liquid Glass-inspired elements on iOS, while Instagram is still testing similar changes.

Meanwhile, Google has had Material 3 Expressive for almost a full year, and only a few major third-party apps have properly adopted it.

And then there are foldables. Despite Android foldables being around for nearly eight years, many major apps still aren’t properly optimized for larger foldable displays. Ironically, some apps are already preparing their layouts for the rumored iPhone Fold before fully optimizing for Android foldables.

It’s easy to blame developers for not optimizing their apps properly, but Google also hasn’t pushed them hard enough. Apple has much tighter ecosystem control and effectively forces developers to follow its design standards and optimization requirements. Things like strict App Store reviews make that unavoidable.

Android, on the other hand, gives developers far more freedom. While that openness has benefits, it has also created an inconsistent software experience across many apps. And that problem feels more noticeable, now more than ever before.

That said, things may finally be improving. During its recent Android Show keynote, Google announced a partnership with Meta to bring better Instagram optimizations to Android. That includes an improved capture-to-upload pipeline, Ultra HDR support, and better optimization for Android tablets.

Google is also bringing more exclusive editing features to the Edits Android app, and Adobe Premiere is finally making its way to Android as well.

All of this makes me feel like things are slowly starting to change. But I still think Google needs to go further. At the very least, the top 1% most-used apps should be under much stricter scrutiny from Google to ensure they’re properly optimized for flagship Android phones. And I think that alone would dramatically improve how people perceive Android as a platform.