With advances in technology, a sleek, well-performing smartphone is attainable for almost everybody today in the United States. When choosing such a phone to purchase, an iPhone belongs on top of the list, above Android devices manufactured by a variety of different companies.

An issue with Android phones is software updating. Due to the fact that iPhones are manufactured exclusively by Apple, the company will ensure all relevant models receive same updates.

But when it comes to Android, even esteemed supporter Android Central admits, “When Android is updated, only phones from Google that are currently supported can expect an update. Those phones are a very small portion of Android devices in the wild.”

Customer support is another field in which Android companies are bested by Apple. If a problem occurs, owning an Apple phone saves time, sweat and money.

According to the Boy Genius Report, “Apple has…265 [retail stores] in the United States alone. As a result, Apple’s retail infrastructure provides…convenience for users who need to bring a product in to be examined. This is infinitely more helpful than the alternative other companies provide — tech support via the phone.”

A common argument Android users employ is that Android has a higher market share than Apple. But according to data collected by Strategy Analytics, sales of Apple’s iPhone 7 series ranked first and second in models sold by 2017’s first quarter, whereas the leading Android ranked third with a difference of over ten million models.

On a smaller scale, 100 students on campus were selected randomly and polled for their opinions. Of the voters, a staggering 84 percent prefers iPhones over Android devices. Apple devices are more welcomed in Portola High as well as on a worldwide scale.

From the support provided to their effectiveness at software updating and their popularity, iPhones are clearly superior products to Android phones.

With the hum of excitement in anticipation of summer also comes finals week as students begin to cram a semester-or-two’s worth of knowledge. Although potentially stressful, most end-of-year finals should be cumulative of the entire year’s worth of information to ensure long-term retention and maintaining a flow across the two semesters.

When students review material from the start of the year, it makes the two semesters more contiguous. When a final focuses solely on second semester content, many students will ignore first semester content. This is especially damaging in courses with standardized testing, such AP or SAT subject tests.

According to Psychology Today, studying something again after a delay, called spaced learning, can produce a huge amount of learning and drastically improved retention; spaced learning is crucial to long-term learning.

“Although I understand the stress of studying subjects from a past semester, I understand the importance of taking a year’s worth of content…to encompass everything students have learned,” sophomore Tresa Schrader said. “It’s good to get into the habit of retaining information that you absorb rather than forgetting it as soon as you enter a new semester.”

A huge upset with cumulative finals, however, is students feeling overwhelmed with a large amount of content to study. With content increasing in difficulty, it is imperative that students learn to handle the stress of studying early-on, even if Netflix is calling. A cumulative final gives students an opportunity to demonstrate how much they have learned throughout the year and a chance to practice time-management skills.

The learning outcome of having cumulative finals, including increased content retention and practice with preparation strategies, is much more important than ignoring a semester’s worth of information.