What are the pros and cons of having a single button for iPhone and 3 buttons (back, home and settings) on Android from both hardware and user experience perspectives?

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Apple has been designing iPhone using single button, though it has hardware issues in the past. Also, Android has been consistent with 3 buttons but never copied iPhone in this aspect.
I would also like to know differences in terms of User experience - Playing Games, migrating between Apps, etc.

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tynamite

The way Apple works is that "it just works". You never have to read a manual or ask your friends for help on their stuff, you instinctively know what to do. If you get computer illiterate person around macs, you'll notice that the only thing they need help with is how to eject the disk disk drive. If you go to System Preferences, you'll be surprised that the settings to change the computer's behaviour is very minimal. You can't even reinstall drivers like you can on Windows.

Compare that philosophy to Windows, how everything is customisable.

I like the idea of smartphones only having a home button from a design aspect, form, but it's not very functional. You just end up with a back button and a menu button taking up real estate on the screen. Apple puts form over function, and Google puts function over form. That's why I prefer Android as I'm computer literate and I check the settings of every program before I use it.

The iPhone is good with just a home button from a design and usability aspect, but it's bad from a functional and real estate on the screen aspect. Android having three or four buttons below the screen is bad for newcomers and it looks worse, but it it's functional and allows users to use the phone faster. Android used to have home, menu, back and search, but now they've changed it to home, back and multitask with the menu button popping up when needed.