Apple and Google are the two biggest players in mobile tech right now. Apple with their beautiful, yet simple ios and Google with the amazing yet let's the user decide Android os. Both companies make amazing products, but Apple has always had the better design while Google has always knocked Web services out of the park. From Google now, to drive, to basic search, Google will always in my opinion be king of web, while apple makes undoubtedly the most beautiful hardware on the market.
Both companies have been improving where the other is stronger, this started with the holo ui in Android 4.0 ics and with apple's siri program. I think that Google has made some of the bigger strides recently, it comes down to the small things. For example just changing the way the drop down menu works, with the two finger quick toggles, to the new all white nav and status bar. Google has done a lot to clean the look of Android up a lot. Another thing that I find amazing is the breaking of the apps from the os and putting them into the play store, this allows Google to update them from within the play store without sending a massive update to fix everything at once. This also means that carriers and oems can't screw the customers over because they no longer control when the updates come, forcing in some cases up to a year after a update is available. Although Motorola and HTC have had great track records recently at updating their devices within 90-120 days of a new OS release. HTC has also said that they will update the One M8 within 90 days of release as well.
Ios is making big strides in Web services as well, although they still rely on third party for search and siri, the continuity aspect of ios8 is very appealing and if they do it right will be a big game changer for how we interact with our phones and tablets.
Back to Android now, Google is also focusing on design by starting the Google Now Launcher, this Launcher gives a unified experience across all devices running 4.1. It is a simplistic Launcher that starts with Google now and then let's the user decide how to arrange their home screens. The main thing is that Google now is always present, this gives the user a single place to get all their information that they will need for the day. And now with inclusion of Material Design and Android L, Android is poised to create a unified and beautiful UI and can now focus on the User Experience, something that Apple has championed all along.
Lastly the oems, the oems are finally figuring out how to design the hardware to look good. For example the HTC one m8 is amazingly beautiful and made out of 90% metal. This is pushing what a high end flagship should look and feel like. Another prime example is the Sony Xperia z2, this phone is slim, and stunning. This is also the first time oems are figuring out that people care more about the user experience than they do about gimmicks and adding so much that it slows the phone down (Samsung). HTC, Sony, LG, and Motorola all add a few things that the user wants, and perfects them. They make them easy to use, easy to get to and follows the kiss method (keep it simple stupid).
I think that Google is fixing it's design problem faster than apple is fixing it's Web services issue, with that said I still think the best looking phone is the iPhone 5s if it were bigger. That screen size is inexcusable at this point. I know they are coming out with a bigger phone this year and that is great for Apple. When WWDC happened this year I was very excited about the function that Apple was putting into their devices, and all of a sudden Google struts it’s stuff and I am all gaga for Google again. Google has stepped up design as well have all of OEMs for Android, thus making the later half of 2014 and the early part of 2015 very interesting and exciting for tech nerds.
