Android vs iPhone: What’s the Best Type of Smartphone for Kids?

Are you looking at choosing the best type of smartphone for your kid? The USA Today comes up with a quick guide that that could help you choose based on most common concerns parents have such parental control, malware, lost phone recovery and price.

Parental Control

The Apple iPhone have features to turn off Internet, camera and video chat use, and manage apps. Moreover, it also functions to set content rates for eBooks, videos, music and apps. And with iOS 7 coming out on Wednesday, parents will now be able to block adult contents.

Android units, on the other hand, only have the functions to set content blocking apps from Google's PlayStore, and password-restricted purchases. Parents could make use of powerful parental-control applications such as Kido'z, Kid's Shell, and NQ Family Guardian to block, monitor and manage the Android apps.

Malware

Apple is not equipped with any anti-malware software as it is built to block most apps which limit the attack of malware. However, parents can download the Lookout Mobile Security app which can detect if the kids have jailbroken the smartphone to get unauthorized apps.

Android devices can get free anti-malware such as Norton Mobile Security and Trend Micro Mobile Security. The OS has been target of multiple malware attacks recently but this can be controlled if the kids will be taught to use Google Play, Amazon App Store, and other trustworthy downloading sites only.

Lost Phone

Both devices have its own lost phone recovery options so this should not be an issue whatever the parents choose. Android has the Android Device Manager which owners can use to track and ring their phone while Apple has the Find my iPhone function.

Pricing
When talking about prices of handsets, there are already carriers offering free iPhone 4S or some Android phones for a new plan. Best check out online sites Wirefly or Amazon to see the differences of Android prices from other stores.

A new line would usually cost $30 per month under carriers Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. Stand alone plans however could range from $35 to $50 a month.

So there are the things you may consider when picking the best type of smartphone for the kids. Most would prefer to get a low-cost Android device but if budget is not an issue, might as well pick an iPhone especially for busy parents so that you can still feel safer even if you are not available to monitor your kids’ online activities 24/7.