“Conception” vs. “inception”

Question

A friend of mine just stated:

I'm unimpressed by iOS6, most of the "features" they are introducing have been there since Android's conception.

I was about to correct him, believing inception to be the correct word.

When should one be used over the other?

Answer 1

I am not an English expert, but with a quick look in a dictionary both conception and inception are correct in the mentioned sentence.

I think the use of the word conception will mean:

I'm unimpressed by iOS6, most of the "features" they are introducing have been there since Android's first idea.

and use of the word inception will mean:

I'm unimpressed by iOS6, most of the "features" they are introducing have been there since Android's beginning.

Don't count on my answer unless someone expert approves it. But for me this is how I would understand it.

Answer 2

Inception is more about the starting point in time. It is a temporal reference.

Conception is more about the action of creating something. A child or an idea are formed and something is produced.

So one is about the production of something, and the other is about when something is produced.

It depends on the intended semantics of the speaker in this case. Which what they said would be correct to say the idea about the act of creating the feature list for Android was conceived, would be conception.

The temporal reference of when Android was introduced would be the inception.

The two words are definitely linked but not the same semantically in any way.

Answer 3

I would say that inception is the more relevant concept. Android's conception would be when the idea of the operating system was first conceived, and features being present in someone's idea of an OS doesn't matter worth a damn to anyone; it's features that are actually implemented, as at the first inception of the OS, that matter.