The only time Android needed to play “catch up” against Apple was when iPhoneOS was invented, under Jobs administration. That WAS a massive hit, not because the OS per se, but Android was created thinking inside the box (a box created by Microsoft and Windows Mobile) with their user interface based on hardware buttons and a display with capacitive sensors. The day Jobs showed a device with a “Look ma, no pen” (and no buttons) Google labs said “Ok, we’re doomed, THE ENTIRE PHONE needs a redesign”. After Android 4 most things were like “iOS now have x feature!” and Android users “We have it already since version # years ago”. I always had “smartphones”, and made the jump from Windows Mobile to iPhone, and at a point, Android was inevitable and I needed to acquire an Android phone for developing reasons. Well, I was buying every new iPhone those days, so I thought it would be a hard task to find a better Android. I remember I’ve chose one HTC device that for me was like beating 200% any feature I had on my iPhone, starting by the camera. Jobs seemed doing incremental feature enhancements by design, to sell more iPhones on each cycle with “Now with… X feature! And not 2 megapixels! But 5!” while Android phone makers competing were just trying every new technologies, 12Mp cameras for example while Jobs offered 5Mp. Yes, I was walking around with 2 phones. But due to Android being untethered, not needing cabled “iTunes” to work, and a better camera, I was using less and less iPhones until I inverted my world, Android first, iPhone as a development platform, and stopped using iPhones. When my daughter cracked the screen of some of her iPhones, I got an update to my lab devices. 
Today, even she has switched, but as always, she always want something better than dad’s, that don’t need stellar features for pictures and Whatsapp.
Errata:
Resistive. Jobs introduced capacitive.
A minor datapoint from the earth science world regarding Android and iOS devices: geologists have been fascinated for years about the possibility of using smart phones as geological compasses. My iOS app Stereonet Mobile (written in Xojo), which is one of the more popular ones that does this, has about 5k new downloads per year. Several studies published in various professional journals suggest that while iPhones are (mostly) reliable enough to serve this purpose, Android devices in general are not. Though some of those studies have suggested that iPhones use better quality components (especially the magnetometer), I suspect it may have more to do with magnetic noise cancellation. The magnetic field generated by the power supply and other components is, at close range much stronger than the earth’s magnetic field. Android is a least common denominator platform that must be able to run on many many different devices and various manufacturers put components in different places, etc. Because Apple controls both the software and hardware, they have much better knowledge where the onboard magnetic field generating components are in the first place. You never have to rotate your device in a figure eight pattern any more to calibrate the magnetometer (though that can still help). Nonetheless, all smart phones are highly susceptible to systematic errors in anything to do with the magnetometer.
For most users, of course, this is completely irrelevant to the decision of whether to buy an Android device or an iPhone!
Well, we need a real analytical study for that, comparing major smartphone brands, and exposing their inner components, including Apple. People that uses compasses says, “never trust a mobile phone compass (magnetometer), use a real one”. Don’t trust any phone north as the north a good compass will read, and funny enough the examples usually are done using 2 or more iPhones and a compass:
Not to worry. Geologists always carry precision analog compasses/clinometers with them that are specially damped for use in either the northern or souther hemisphere and generally cost $800-$1000 or more. The attraction of a smartphone geological compass is data redundancy increasing the signal to noise ratio. My app calculates the orientation of the surface every 100 ms while held steady so in five seconds I get 50 data points to average. That five second measurement is generally about an order of magnitude faster than a single measurement of the same surface made with an analog compass, meaning that the user can, potentially, collect way more measurements. I also show the measurement on a map immediately so that the orientation can be evaluated relative to known geographic features (we generally now use LiDAR based digital elevation models with horizontal resolutions between 0.5 and 1.0 m to make all of our base maps which capture extraordinary detail).
Nonetheless, you are correct an inexperienced user who places blind faith in any technology/tool, especially in the backcountry, can get into a lot of trouble. It is eye opening to run an app that shows continuous output from the phone magnetometer and watch the perturbations as one waves metal/electronic objects nearby!
when i bought my 2016 r3 licence, it was announced that android will be in “soon”
Althoug the logic of @Björn_Eiríksson it is true with regard to selling a licence in the US compare to the rest of the world, @Rick_Araujo is right in that today selling the licence it self cannot be the business, the service related to the licence is what matters.
still waiting 7 years since
still have faith
Xojo is no longer my fundament
@MarkusR Not sure you meant it this way, but it’s funny. “fundament” is a somewhat old fashioned and polite way of saying “backside”.
He said this way
Yes, of course. It’s still funny. Scroll down on the Cambridge Dictionary web page a bit – see the second definition.
Sitzt du auf Xojo?
There are 2 things going on:
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Some words, in some languages, if you “scroll down” enough in a dictionary looking for out of the context meanings, you may get something funny.
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English is not Markus primary language, so he reached “fundament” probably looking for something related to “foundation”
the meaning was base/basis/fundament is where you start building a house.
@Rick_Araujo
My goodness. The use of fundament to mean backside is hardly obscure! And of course I know English isn’t his native language, if it were he would not have written what he did. Regardless, my comment was made tongue in cheek. Have a little laugh or don’t!
english can be understand in complete sentence and in context.
and btw. i saw this other meaning at dict.cc too.
german 1:n english 
Next topic.
Last time. Yes, it was obvious what you meant. And it could be interpreted another way, which is one of the classic bases of humor. That’s called a double entendre, or sometimes a play on words. I pointed out the unintended humor, I didn’t expect defensive lectures and explanations. You can be amused or not. This thread is being pointlessly hijacked. There is nothing more useful to be said!
You explicitly asked for explanations.
Sigh. No I didn’t. That’s a common American (English?) idiom. It’s a polite way of pointing out an error without assigning blame. It’s part of the “tongue and cheek” I mentioned. And that is my final, final comment.