Most Android makers spend their time and money on 4 or 5 devices per year per company inorder to meet the needs of a wide variety of customers.
This is part of the reason Samsung comes out with several phones per year that all have something that seriously sucks about them unless you buy the flagship which is too big to be practical for most people.
Apple spends their time and money on 1 or 2 devices per year that are practical for a wider variety of customers. Even being a long time Android enthusiast I must say Qualcomm chipsets are really not much different than those found in iPhones however Apple is designing the firmware and the chipset together. One device, one company, no competition, more communication therefore more optimization.
I have been servicing and buying/selling smartphones as a side business for several years now and in the process, I have discovered some dirty marketing secrets that phone companies use. In fact I think these companies spend more money and time on marketing and sales than they do making their technology superior.
Apple is no exception to this, but it is clear they are a lot less willing to sacrifice quality for the sake of sales.
I have tested almost every phone camera out there and there are very few that are as good as the iPhone 4s and 5 and not one as good as the 5s. Also it seems that Apple uses some sort of advanced lens filtering for better color accuracy under artificial light. Anyone who thinks a camera is better because of a higher megapixel rating is victim of pure marketing ********.
I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini and have opened it up along with many full blown S4's. It makes sense that both these devices would use the same DAC, and, they do. I know because I have physically looked. However the Mini does not go nearly as loud. Why? Because Samdung used a lower gain value for the headphone amplifier in the Mini. Why? Marketing. I modified the DAC config file in my S4 Mini and changed the amplifier gain values to those found in the S4's config file and it now goes just as loud and has no audible hiss or distortion whatsoever and I am not the least bit surprised. Battery life was not even effected despite me blasting dubstep music into my 16ohm headset all the time.
Perhaps this is a marketing technique and if the S4 mini went as loud as the flagship device, anyone looking for a hardcore music device would not need the flagship unit.
The WCD9306 audio IC in both these devices, was designed by Qualcomm to drive almost any headset to tectonic levels with minimal distortion. Samsung drastically limited the maximum output level in what would otherwise be a wicked, one handed 64GB portable music player because they cared more about marketing.
This sickens me and Apple does not do crap like this.
This still leaves one thing, why is the stereo crosstalk on the S4 far superior to that of the Mini? Simply this, because the S4 Mini has an FM radio on board which requires resistance between the headset shield and the system board ground inorder for the antenna to work. When you apply even a small amount of resistance between the shared ground of 2 speakers and the ground of their amplifier, crosstalk rises immediately.
I soldered a wire across the inductor that causes this resistance in my S4 Mini since I don't use the FM radio anyways and now it has almost no stereo crosstalk just like the flagship S4.
FM radio is also nothing but marketing and in my opinion, should not even exist. The fact that the stereo imaging in my headphones is affected negatively by the presence of an FM radio is sickening.
The reason I use the S4 mini and not an iPhone is because this is the closest Android device I can find to an iPhone but it really ought to have a Qualcomm logo on the unit instead of Samsung.
I am interested in developing and modding and the mandatory use of iTunes and limited advanced customization options are an immediate deal breaker for me. Apple nails it better than anyone when it comes to designing a device that works for lots of people without the need of advanced customization and modification, but it is not enough for some people.
The bottom line is, there actually are a few Android devices out there over the last year, that give you iPhone performance in a small package but not unless you know how to make delicate firmware and hardware modifications inorder to use the full capabilities of the chipsets. This is already done in the iPhone.
You are bang on when you say Apple is more optimized.
