My Mega Awesome Genius Hour (#2)

Screenshot 2016-02-10 at 12.17.17 PM

Hi everyone! Our class’s just finished our second Genius Hour and now it’s time for the reflection. Before we start though, I just want to restate what a Genius Hour is. A Genius Hour is a project where we are given time in class to research a topic we’re interested in and present it to our class. My last Genius Hour was about criminal profiling and the basis behind it (see my post “My Super Awesome Genius Hour” for more information). This time, I went in a completely different direction.

I decided to compare Apple’s ios and Google’s Android. I chose this because I’m surrounded by Apple owners and I wanted to see why. Was Android not good enough? Was it boring? To answer this, I compared the two phones’ security and sales, which are two features of any device that I feel are important and reveal a lot about the brand. From this, I learned that Android is more popular globally because it is much cheaper than its Apple counterpart. Those numbers are coming from developing countries because Android phones cost less compared to an iPhone, it makes it easier for developing countries to own their phones. For example, the most recent Android phone costs about $100 less than the most recent iPhone. On the flip side, Apple is more popular in the United States and China because the people there can afford Apple’s high prices. At the same time, Apple puts more money in and has more successful advertisements. Also, app developers invest in Apple’s apps more than Android’s. Security wise, I never found a direct answer during my research, but I personally think Apple’s security is better because it limits one person to one device, which I believe is automatically secure if information is unique to one device and can only be accessed by one person.

This Genius Hour helped me become more critical when answering questions with answers as easy as “this” or “that one.” Before I researched the positives and negatives of the two softwares, my mindset was a little biased. I was almost positive that Apple was better and that those on the internet would agree with me by generally supporting Apple. They did support Apple, but others supported Android much more than I thought they would. In other words, they were much more unbiased than I imagined. Looking back at this, I realized that sometimes, even the simplest questions may need a little background information before coming up with a simple answer. Even though I still support Apple, I have learned more about Android, which helps me have a more impartial answer.

For this project, instead of talking about one subject, I compared two items. It was kind of weird because I had to constantly remind myself that my presentation format cannot be exactly the same as my last Genius Hour because of the compare and contrast factor. Due to this, I also had to research and analyze my information more. The topic and research mostly helped me since the main reason I chose this project was to help myself understand the differences between Apple and Android. It may have also helped some of my classmates learn a little more about Android (they didn’t need to listen to Apple pros and cons to decide if they still liked the brand, especially since almost everyone was against Android) even they most likely have not changed their minds about their preferences. I feel like my topic generally introduced a few points about each of the brands that showed how one wasn’t drastically better than the other.

I am not sure what my next Genius Hour will be or how it will affect the world, though I do not want my next Genius Hour to focus on something with such a big impact (e.g. world hunger, pollution, etc.). I feel like I want my next Genius Hour to focus on issues that are smaller than that and possibly forgotten. I hope that with my next Genius Hour, I will help the world and the people around me just by bringing attention to it.

Here’s a link to my presentation:

 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hWawouTvKRYEHvmJi-27oKuSj-hrIC1ucMGLYPcrJZ8/edit#slide=id.p