Earlier this week, I wrote about the surprisingly good Motorola Moto G (2nd Gen) phone I was testing at our publisher’s request, and though I wouldn’t switch from iOS to Android, the experience made plain that even a sub-$100 Android phone is competent enough today to serve as a more capable alternative to a $199 iPod touch. I’ve since been testing the $180 Moto G (3rd Gen), which is still less expensive than the lowest-end iOS device, but is faster than its predecessor, and includes still cameras rivaling Apple’s flagship iPhone 6s models. Contrary to Apple’s marketing, Android devices aren’t all bad, and $100-$200 options from major manufacturers are now delivering much better overall value than Apple’s sub-$200 devices.
Google has spent the last few years really closing Android’s overall user experience gap with iOS, while adding and polishing some features that are either Android-exclusive — or markedly better on Android than iOS. So just like Google borrowed elements of iOS to improve Android, Apple should be doing the same. Here are the top 10 features I’d pick for iOS 10 to clone…
10. Versatile, Location-Aware Device Security + Functionality. There have been hints over the years that Apple wants to enable iOS devices to automatically behave differently whether they’re at home, in an office or school, in a car, or out and about. Android already offers this with two features. One is Smart Lock, which can automatically disable a device’s password/lock screen features if you’re at a trusted location, connected to your car’s Bluetooth system, or near your smartwatch. It can also offer access to the device if your voice matches a specific pattern, or your face matches a prior scan. Additionally, apps such as Moto Assist can optionally use your location, the phone’s orientation, and other factors to change the behavior of notifications and other phone features.
9. Real Live Wallpaper. Android’s approach to wallpaper has been considerably better than iOS’s for years — Google makes it easy to change wallpaper (just press and hold down on your current wallpaper), and allows developers to offer completely 3-D or animated 2-D designs. Apple has offered an extremely limited collection of “dynamic” and “live” iOS wallpaper options that are nowhere near as impressive as Android’s, and they remain one of Android’s most conspicuous benefits over iPhones and iPads.
8. Multi-User Support. Macs have multiple user accounts. As of Android 5.0, many Android devices have multiple user accounts. iOS does not. Arguably better for tablets than phones, this feature would nonetheless enable a parent to hand either type of device to a child without fear of having the wrong things accessed. Supposedly under development for some time now, there’s no reason for iOS to continue to lack this feature.
7. Customizable Home Screens, Folder Sizes, and Widgets. iOS established the template for Home Screen designs and made folder creation easy, but Android has built upon the features by enabling greater customization of Home Screen icon locations, and using folders that make better use of the screen’s size when opened. Apple should borrow these improvements from Android, and add icon resizing to the mix, too. Adding support for full-fledged alternate app launchers, another UI option in Android, seems too impossible to even imagine.
One of Android’s best UI enhancements is the ability to use widgets, mini-apps that get added to one or more of your Home Screens, offering both functionality and a more interesting look than a plain icon grid. You can have a large clock, specific contacts, a current Facebook status, part of your inbox, or a driving directions shortcut for a specific place sitting at the ready for your use. The fact that widgets can optionally occupy more than a single icon worth of space is really great, too.
6. Google Backup and Photos. Unless you’re willing to pay a recurring monthly fee, iCloud is one of iOS’s most conspicuous pain points. It’s Apple’s Internet-based service that tells you to pay more for enough storage to back up your expensive iOS devices, and teases you with the ability to access all your photos (and perhaps videos) from any device, anywhere, only if you’re willing to pay for the privilege. Google offers these features to users for free, including buyers of even $99 Android phones, and Android is better for it. It’s really time for iCloud to follow suit.
5. Virtual Buttons. Some iOS die-hards may disagree, but Android’s use of virtual home, back, and multitasking buttons rather than a dedicated Home button has helped to shrink Android devices’ chins without compromising functionality. iOS 9 introduced a virtual back button on an as-needed basis in the upper left corner of the screen, but it’s neither as convenient nor intuitive to access as Android’s. Doing away with the physical Home button in favor of a virtual one would help Apple cut even more of those millimeters it loves to shave off, assuming it can find another location for Touch ID.
4. Google Now. Apple knows Google Now’s automated presentation of useful “cards” containing travel, weather, and information guidance is great, which is why it tried to capture the feature with iOS 9’s Proactive. But Proactive is at best a subtle, muted alternative to Google Now, and Apple needs to add way better and much more functionality to capture the range of automated details Google Now offers.
3. Deeper Emergency Alert Settings. This is a minor point, but iOS’s support for “Government Alerts” consists of two switches that toggle off or on “AMBER Alerts” and “Emergency Alerts,” with no granular controls. If you’ve ever received one of those notifications on an iPhone, you know that your device could seriously startle you in the middle of a drive or restful night’s sleep over something that may well have zero importance to your life. Android lets you differentiate between “extreme threats to life and property,” “severe threats to life and property,” and AMBER alerts, with the option to disable vibration — one of the scariest parts of iOS’s warnings — and receive reminders either once, every 2 minutes, or every 15 minutes.
2. Daydream Options. Screensavers can be a lot of fun, and if they’re designed well, they can be practical, too. Since they’re not really saving the screens of mobile devices, Android calls the feature “Daydream,” letting you display something of your choice on screen when the phone is docked and/or charging. This could, for example, let your device serve as a clock when docked with speakers, or as a news ticker when sitting at your office desk. You can initially choose from a clock, a shifting rainbow color pattern, several photo gallery types, or animated wallpaper (as shown below); some apps add Daydream choices of their own as well. Whether you want your device to be displaying information, or just doing something cool to show off its powerful graphics chips, iOS should give you the same option.
1. A More Usable, Mac-Like Top-Of-Screen Status Bar. Android isn’t perfect in this regard, but it’s easy to call closer to “right” than iOS. Ever since Apple’s first consumer computer graphical user interface, a small bar at the top of the screen has been reserved for menu options, and the Mac has evolved over time to include features such as a clock, a persistent search icon, notification center trigger, and mini-dock for app settings. iOS’s status bar leaves the space mostly open, but includes such arguably unnecessary elements as the device’s or cellular carrier’s name and a long battery icon that may or may not sit besides a more accurate remaining battery percentage. Android uses the bar largely for icons, but includes app download status and completion, as well as other icons that clearly seem linked to the bar’s related pull-down menu for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, and other controls. Letting users customize this bar, and getting rid of the word “iPad” or “Verizon” at the top, would be useful improvements on iOS.
Are there any other Android features you’d like to see come to iOS? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
More From This Author
Check out more of my reviews, How-To guides and editorials for 9to5Mac here! I’ve published a lot of different topics of interest to Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, and Apple Watch users, as well as a great holiday gift guide for iPhone users, a detailed holiday gift guide for Mac users, and a separate holiday gift guide for Apple photographers.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
So you wonna make iOS to Android? no thanks mate
Well that’s open minded of you. Well done.
This sort of modestly considered and barely literate sentiment is precisely why most of the authors here rarely respond to comments.
A stylus bundled with the phone? YESSSSSSS
This was my first response as well. There are probably 20 things I could think of that I’d want before 8 of these suggestions…it’s why I use iOS and not Android.
No one’s saying “put Android on iOS devices” — it takes a combination of poor reading comprehension and myopia to reach that conclusion. The article is plainly discussing “Android features that could be usefully added to iOS.” Obviously you have 20 things you’d like to see added. So let’s hear your list.
Bear in mind that every feature I suggested is purely optional – something you could choose to enable or not, which is why it’s not surprising that in the 70 or so comments posted so far, individual people have said they would like some subset of them. Not everyone is going to want to use every feature, but then, that’s true of almost every iOS feature, too.
10 and 9 arent really my thing, but I’d welcome any of the rest. Can’t comment on any other possible features since I’ve never used an android device. That said, I do expect BIG things for iOS 10 or I will be very disappointed.
I wouldn’t mind some of these but I don’t like Google’s implementation. The broad idea of a more interactive home screen is appealing, but I like the standard iOS grid. I think something equivalent to the Apple Watch’s complications on the iPhone home or lock screen could be interesting–a way to push information update in an icon/button form but also enforce certain standard shapes and activities while preserving battery.
Location based security and live wallpapers are convenient and cool.
Their Siri proactive features should also steal from Google. One, it should pull more from email like Google:
– Alerts for shipment notifications / expected delivery
– Flight times
Also, I’d love to set favorites in Siri and have those things show up there:
– Favorite sports teams: headlines show up in news, scores/schedule info of big games (I guess there’s notification center too for things like this)
– Favorite family/friends: birthday notifications / or a birthday icon on the suggested contacts
– Favorite TV shows – new episode available or premiering
– Favorite music – new album/song out or concert tickets; one click playlists
– Other possibilities for authors/books, recipes/food, local events (street fests, conferences plays)
Alerts for shipment notifications and flight times would mean scouring your email for that information, which, I would imagine, goes against Apple’s concept of privacy.
What Apple did recently add was the ability to check your flight status using 3D Touch. Beyond that there are apps that offer both shipment tracking, flight times, ESPN can deliver updates on your favorite teams, FanTV, Viggle and other TV related apps offer updates, Apple Music offer email alerts about new music and other apps offer concert updates; you get the message. Basically, there’s an app for that.
Google, however, wants to know anything and everything about you in order to push more ads in your face.
I’m not saying some of the features Google has isn’t great. I for one wouldn’t mind having a customizable screen but I believe the “Siri Suggestions” screen is a peek into the future of what Apple intends on doing with the home screen. I’m actually surprised that screen isn’t the first screen you see when you unlock your phone.
Expect to be disappointed then.
I miss most of these things from when I was using Android devices for a few years, but touch id keeps me with Apple. I know the new Nexus devices have something similar, but I trust apple with the security more than I do Google.
What do you fear Google will do with your fingerprint? Honest question.
You know, I guess it’s just an irrational fear that it will be tied to some sort of ad or purchase tracking. I suppose apple could do it as well, but I just feel that google wants more data about me and what I am interested in. Like I said, it’s more of a feeling and most likely untrue.
My fear is that someday Google will sell, or be coerced to give up, their collected data.
The beauty of Apple’s touch id implementation is that you don’t have to fear that Apple will misuse your fingerprint because they never get it.
In contrast, you have to trust Google will, forever and always, do the right thing because Google has a handle on all your Android data and they keep all of your data for the foreseeable future. You also have to trust that Google will not be able to be forced to give up such data.
One could make the claim that Apple is lying about holding onto your data. But Google admits to it today and makes an argument that their employees, management, and partners are all completely trustworthy. One would also have to assume that Google would never be impacted by governments demanding data out of them. I don’t have that much trust in Google -OR- the big governments of the world.
😂😂 have you seen what they do w/ your info from search alone? They’re way more friendly w/ intrusion and info seeking than Apple. I’d rather prefer being too strict than to being lax when it comes to privacy.
8,7, and 5 are really pretty spot on and I can imagine these making it in if for nothing but the iPad thanks to the iPad Pro. Add cursor support and an app drawer and it would be pretty great for power users and moderate tech people to replace a laptop.
So, here you go:
Yes to: 10, 3
Partly yes to: 8 (iPad), 6
No to: 9, 7, 4, 2, 1
Definitely not: 5
I mostly disagree with jeremy’s opinion posts… This one has some interesting points, but some, like virtual buttons (which apple should and will most propably tackle with force touch gestures [right edge force swipe to go home]) and a more customizable home screen (one of the reasons android looks so ugly on most devices/in most cases) or “Versatile” (which is unstable, logically completely insecure And power consuming) are just completely ridiculous…
6 or 7 of these are completely ridiculous… “daydream mode” really… customizable status bar… who cares? All I want is NFC to be open so you can put your keycard from work or college ID in it.
I actually don’t want Apple to do any of this. They’re completely different systems that offer a totally different approach to UI. A lot of the stuff mentioned can be done on iOS differently. And you can install Google Now on iPhone if you want. iCloud is more secure with no gimmicks and more privacy. To me that is worth a small fee (I don’t need unlimited storage). As far as home screen, iOS has a rigid scheme, Google doesn’t. They don’t mix well. In short you can’t have a marshmallow-flavored apple. It’s just not possible. ;-)
I can’t really get on board with any of these except: 1, the live wallpaper, Apple and/or devs have dropped the ball on that. I want that amazing fish flapping the whole time the screen is on if I want it to be. 2, the icon locations. I still believe in the grid, but it’s silly to not be able to have a T-shaped app arsenal for instance. Rumor has it the virtual button stuff is in the works to some extent, and I’m sure they’ll get that right, so……
Every time I see a screenshot of Android or use it in person, my eyes just feel so strained. First there is just too much going on and there is no symmetry. Worst of all, Google has made it even more difficult for people with low vision to use Android comfortably with there new Material Design. Fonts are light in color and are extremely tiny. There is so much white space that they could fill be they don’t. They just don’t seem to care about accessibility like Apple does. And it’s a shame because they offer great functionality but just not to everyone.
And another thing could be the multiple input methods to introduce text that Android has..
Widgets on the Homescreen? No. No no no. Wrong. That’s a bad interface designer. Very bad interface designer. Go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done. Widgets belong on overlays.
Yeah, they are so damned handy in notification center
OMG! I can’t be bothered to swipe down! Paul Douglas is right, widgets belong on overlays. Not screwing up my beautifully organized app grid.
Wow, apple people are sure whiny. You can have a grid on Android if you want. You can have widgets if you want. Try it before you start thinking you know everything about it.
To the biggest handicap ios has is a user managable file/ folder system.
Let me orgnize my files and assets as like to have them.
This is also very much related to the abstract icloud .
+ 10,9,5,4, 1
Get a damn file manager.
Ios’s file system, is very fragile.
Make the wrong move and you could end up with a broken iPhone, that not even iTunes can fix.
Anyone who has jailbroken their device should know how complex ion’s file system is.
IOS’S*
Nope… That a half ass solution.
The file management has to be at the core of the Ios.. Not some 3rd party app.
It has to be native and accesible from ever app.
Fragile or not.. Its something Apples got to fix and implement !
@yojimbo007 Buy some Android phone then. iPhone shouldn’t have a file management.
Oh, you mean like a user home folder?
Yeah, sure.
Its nice.
However, I really don’t sea a way for this to be built properly into iOS.
IOS sheeps (not users, sheeps) have their reality so twisted by apple that anything different, even if it’s better, will cause them a severe headache. Now, add to that that you are suggesting features from android… And I bet several of them are already suffering a brain hemorrhage.
Wow. You’re a massive idiot, huh?
I hate to agree with you here being an iPhone user, but I do. A lot of people will see Apple as either all or nothing — there is no compromise. It’s black / white — no grey! It’s Apple’s way, which is “the best” (of course), then there’s everything else. Even when the decisions Apple makes, make no friggen sense in the world — like having an NFC chip but not opening it up to be used by any apps — no NFC pairing, nothing — the ONLY thing that it will work with is Apple Pay, and EVERY single NFC signal activates Apple Pay — so so fundamentally retarded.
You ever drive into a town with about twenty road sign advertisements all brightly painted and shouting at you to stop in for free HBO or best chicken wings? Some of us call that trashy, or clutter, and think that life must have been better before the highway went through. If you’ve grown up playing first person shooters, you have likely developed super human reflexes and the fighter pilots’ eye for cutting through the chatter to fix on health or ammo.
The thing is, most of Androids’ users couldn’t begin to master all the cruft the OEMs baked in. So it gets ignored. Wasted and never upgraded. Millions of us don’t play video games and aren’t interested in errata. We want our tools to work in an uncluttered manner. Without pop ups or culture related pushes to get in the way of work. How many times a day do you need to see the weather info on your home screen?
We don’t need Google’s panacea – even with the promise of access to the worlds data to sweeten the deal. They know everything about us already.
Android isn’t the optimum mobile OS and Google knows it. That’s why all these interface elements are thrown at the screen for you to work out. What they should work out is wresting control from manufacturers and making sure patches and security upgrades made it onto more than 15 percent of their users gear.
No, Android handsets aren’t all bad, but they are all bad. Android is even worse than Windows of the ’90s.
And if that’s the Top 10… meh!
Do you want all this in addition to polishing the existing OS or in place of because I don’t think it’s possible, at least not for iOS 10.
How quickly we forget that they were supposed to be “polishing the existing OS” in iOS 9. And refining iOS 7 in iOS 8. It would be nice to see iOS 10 made some progress on the feature front, too.
Yes, please lets just “polish” iOS again, gently tweak the colors of the stock icons, slightly adjust animations and call it revolutionary.
I knew this would open a can of worms with the apple fan boys. I love my apple products but it could take a lot of queues off of android, and I think this list is a good start. I’m so tired of being locked down to what apple wants you to do with their devices. I bought this expensive mini computer, I want to tweak it out the way I want it. Now you might say, well jailbreak your phone if you want more customization. I use to, but the jailbreak community is become clogged with ads and spyware and more crap than ever. I want to be able to make the phone my own, not apples own.
Interesting how you wished for flexibility to tweak your phone and then correctly identified the reason why you shouldn’t. Just like the kid who wants to go outside and play in the road. No rules often equals hospital.
Some people just like their shit to work. Apple built their phone for folks who are content to simply use it. Android is for the tweakers, so that’s the product for you. Nothing wrong with improving the product, but cluttering the interface isn’t improvement.
Definitely Yes
10, 8(iPad), 7(App Grid Layout), 6, 4, 3, and 1
Definitely No
9, 5, and 2
I really have liked the idea of multiple profiles. If I could have a work profile for when I’m out on a site or working with my clients, it could be super handy. A nice little sand box. I feel like iOS has a structure that could support it pretty easily… I’d expect to see something like that in iOSX.
I think true live wallpapers would be cool. On my 6s, the motion papers are cool, but you have to 3D touch to see them so they’re really pointless. I really wanted something like: you wake your iPhone and the wall paper moves like the watch faces do when you raise your wrist.
I hate the Android top bar, it’s so difficult to use.
I could get on board with apple giving users 200gb free of space. THat’s usually enough for most people, though it’s really not too expensive but it would be good for people who are on a tighter budget.
iOS is designed to NOT have any hard buttons to do things. It would destroy apps if they were to implement something like that. Swipe to go back is perfect, clean, out of the way, and reliable.
I hope for a solid release of iOS X
Johnny Ive doesn’t not approve. Seriously. I can see functionality, such as location-aware services (like one of the task managers I use that triggers my home to-do and work to-do items when I arrive at each location on my Apple Watch), but the GUI stuff looks very cluttered to the environment you see on the iOS. No way that makes it into iOS.
10) I have Touch ID. Its almost too instant and my phone is secure 100% of the time. Even at home I have kids that I don’t want to be able to access my devices.
9) Couldn’t care less.
8) No way. I’m not sharing my new iPad Pro with anyone!
7) I used to think I wanted this, then I jailbroke my phone and realized they just are not as useful as they appear to be. I don’t need a weather widget, I can click the weather app icon. I don’t need music controls always on my home screen, I’m not always listening to music and when I want them they are a click or swipe away. I like sports and stocks, but not enough to keep them always going on my screen. I found I just prefer as many icons as I can get on a page for a nice clean look. I don’t know if this makes sense, but there is not one thing I want to see more than everything.
6) You got me here. I’d love free photo backup. Not enough to let Google anywhere near my device, but I’d like Apple to do it. They can also make the entire iPhone free if they want. I won’t complain.
5) Absolutely not. If I see virtual buttons on my iPhone, I’m going back to a flip phone.
4) I’m showing my age here, but this whole getting my phone to guess what info I want next is absurd. When we get to AI like Ex Machina then fine, I’m into it. But not in its current shape. Oh wow look my phone just told me how long it will take me to get to work! I’m so blown away. That saves me from having to say, “Hey Siri, how long will it take me to get to work.” Whew, what a time saver!
3) Not an issue, but sure why not.
2) You have to be F’ing kidding me, right? Get a life.
1) Sure why not.
10, 9, 8, and maybe 6 are all legit. Anything else is meh.
I don’t want any of these features.
I disagree about the free photo backup. iCloud isn’t that expensive and free always has a cost, even if it’s not a serious one at this time.
In regard to the virtual buttons, I think that once 3D Touch is established, it will create the possibility for functions which far surpass simple virtual buttons. In the meantime, my past years of virtual buttons on Android with top end phones don’t sell me.
Free always has a cost? Yes, its called buying a mobile device that costs 200 dollars more than the competition.
Remember, with google, you are the product, not the other way around.
What, did you think google is giving up stuff for free?
They don’t.
Thats why I distance myself as much as I can from google.
Don’t get me wrong, I love android and iOS for different reasons.
But google?
HM
Vicisodiego:
I’ll turn around what you have said about Google onto Apple.
You know those free apps you get in the App store? Do you think Apple are up stuff for free? Or do you think the developers are wasting their time developing apps for free?
See, those free Apps aren’t really free. Developers sign up to use Apple’s iAd. iAd allows developers to place adverts into their applications which then appear on your iPhone screen in the app, and because they are TARGETED adverts they use demographic information which Apple hold on you.
Now the last time I looked, Google wasn’t a charity. They give away their operating system and believe it or not ARE allowed to make money somehow. Apple are one of the richest companies in the world because to use their operating system you HAVE to BUY a phone from THEM, you HAVE to use applications approved by them, and you HAVE to see the targeted adverts aimed at you.
Remember, businesses exist PURELY to take YOUR money. Apple are no different and you would be wise to remember that in future instead of suffering from a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome.
Having widgets are kinda getting old fashion. Saying that i think the look to ios is getting way too old now. Its coming up to its 10th software upgrade. And all 9 software have looks and more or else have worked the same. I think it is about time Apple gave its most important software a major update for it to compete with lower end andriod phones! I have never used an andriod except for sorting bits and bats out for my dad. Some features are welcomed but definitely not the back button. I do hope Apple really push hard with force touch by adding somethings out of the box that no other software maker has done. The last two iOS updates have been minor one, with no visual changes. It time now for Apple to do just that.
Apple doesn’t change things just for the sake of change. They put a lot of effort into getting the basics right from the beginning so that frequent, drastic changes aren’t necessary.
I liken it to the difference between automakers. Mercedes, BMW, and Audi car models go longer without drastically changing their appearance compared to Japanese and American cars. But while a 1970s Mercedes still looks elegant and classic, Most Japanese and American cars look dated and ugly after only a few years.
The only thing that I wish would finally make an appearance was a Blackberry feature – multiple profiles for notifications – sleeping, working, available etc.
basically allow you to create your own set of rules on what can ring and what cannot when a certain profile is set.
I can see how that would be useful for some people, but it doesn’t fit very well into Apple’s vision for simplified devices.
I can only agree with 6 and 4.
Not in the list and not an Android feature as such, but I would be keen on having mouse support for when I’m using remote desktop
Please No to everything but 1. Pretty much every idea sounds horrible, and looks even worse in the pictures. It looks like a portal to 90s design
Just wow, I can’t believe how resistant IOS users can be to change.
I’ve used Android, IOS and Windows Phone and the advantages of Android and Windows Phone UI greatly outweigh anything that IOS has to offer. In fact I now find that IOS is so painfully in need of an update to it’s UI. Fanboys will strongly disagree with me, but anyone that has used Android or Windows Phone with an open mind will agree with me.
Oh and thank you Jeremy Horwitz for an honest review.
You’re blindly assuming anyone objective would have your opinion. Do you have any idea how insane that is?
“I now find that IOS is so painfully in need of an update to it’s UI.”
Hmm, that must explain Apple’s explosive success and Android’s steady decline.
I have owned many Android devices and widgets have always been a blight and stupid. Who gives a shit about widgets or interactive wallpapers.
I think the only real thing is multi user support and Google Photos. All the other stuff is pretty pointless.
I like iOS right now, but I think these features would make it even more attractive.
Can you steal back?
“Contrary to Apple’s marketing, Android devices aren’t all bad”
Would you please provide links to Apple’s advertisements that state that Android devices are all bad?! You can’t, can you?! :-)
I said marketing, not advertisements. Go read a few interviews with Apple’s marketing chief or comments made by its CEOs regarding Android. You may want to check the transcripts of quarterly conference calls as well. There is no portrayal of Android as a great and noble competitor. It’s suggested to be the gathering place of malware, the OS of devices that sit unused in closets and drawers, a data collection system for privacy violations, etc.
Well, seems like most of those are true… 😜 lol
“There is no portrayal of Android as a great and noble competitor”
Hahahahahahahaha! Aw man, you made me spill my latte.
Apple always takes pot shots at Android. Especially during the opening minutes of a Apple event.
9 times out of 10 it’s on a slide showing how many people are on the latest version of iOS and Android. I’d hardly call that a pot shot.
Two big little changes in iOS would make me very happy–
1. Optional home screen layouts (or 3rd party launchers). I still miss ZLauncher and McPhling from the Palm OS and would really like to see a customizable tabbed interface and pop-up menu of recent and favorite apps on the home screen. It really makes great use of the real estate; always provides direct access to the categories of apps.
2. Customizable status bar, especially the ability to hide/show it entirely and hide the time from it. (Count me among those who do NOT want to know what time it is in the middle of the night when they wake to read an ebook or stargaze!)
3. OK, a third– the ability to hide the time from the lock screen and customize it, too. We have clocks enough in our lives without having to always be reminded what time it is!
All these are the reasons I left android and went back to iOS devices. I was an iOS guy for years and switched to a Galaxy S4 when it came out. After 9 months I disliked it so much I bought and iPhone outright.
There is no perfect all in one phone or operating system. I have a iPhone 6s as my primary phone and a Nexus 6 for my at home device. I stopped fighting over small, large, Android or iOS. I use what I want.
Uh oh, I bet heads are going to explode in the comments. Not even going to read them, lol.
Let me say a few things to the people who are reading.
1. Do you know why people think apple invented everything?
Its because apple marketing of features is a lot better then google.
2. I like my android phone, but most of the features are either have finished or don’t work at all.
For example, a simple thing like connecting my lg via Usb requires me to unlock my android device and properly setup the connection.
With my iPhone, its plug and play.
3. I wouldn’t like for iOS to become more like android.
Think about it, their is simply no competition.
The problem with android is that it wants to throw everything at a wall and sea what sticks.
This is why android is fundamentally a mess.
Leaving features have finished.
A better approach would be, first add the key features to your project, and from their, slowly go bringing features in to the platform as you go.
Also, focus on one specific set of features.
For example, productivity features.
You mite say I am a fanboy, but I’v been using android since 4.2
Agreed. This even extends to some manufacturers like Samsung. They throw everything at a wall and see what sticks.
I actually think the author chose some of the worst looking cluster F* setups possible on android on purpose.
Android can have a much better look that what’s shown above.
10- yes
9- live wallpaper – battery waster. but as an OPTION, sure.
8- on a phone. no need. on an iPad – yes
7- YES. let turn off auto arrange if i WANT to. Let me put my apps ANYwhere on the screen I want to. Widgets, YES, let me put them in the notification area like they are now OR the home screen, CHOICE IS GOOD. Let me chose the icon grid. if i want 4×5 or 6×5 or 7×6. let ME chose.
6- Google photos backs up photos for FREE up to 16MP in quality and 1080p video. Apple should keep the 5GB and not count photos against that 5GB.
5- Yes. Apple Needs a back button and NOT the back arrow at the top of the page where is hard to reach like it is now on the 6s/6S+. I am not saying they need the same exact virtual buttons like android but they need to get rid of the MASSIVE chin and forehead to make the phone smaller. The note 6 with a 5.7″ screen is Smaller in width and height than the 6S+ with a 5.5″ because of the massive bottom and top bezels.
4- Yes. Location and People based services like Cortana and Google now. Siri is a weak POS compared to both Cortana and GN in their native environments.
3- Yes.
2- sure, as an OPTION.
1- Yes.
I am NOT saying “make iOS just like android” but there is NOTHING wrong with CHOICE. I am sick and tired on my iPhone screen looking EXACTLY the same as it did 6 years ago. a static grid of icons with NO OTHER OPTIONS.
People on here act like it’s a crime to have more options. No one wants iOS to “become” android. But I do want MORE USER BASED CHOICES.
I WANT widgets on my home screen. I WANT to be able to move my icons to the BOTTOM of the grid where i can reach them without having to use “reachability” which works but is slow and cumbersome. I want a BACK BUTTON. If apple plans to keep the MASSIVE chin, put a back button down there. Give people an OPTION to turn it on and off with a toggle setting.
OPTIONS are a GOOD thing.
If you want you iPhone to “look” exactly the same year after year after year after year, so be it. but don’t say it’s bad that I don’t want that.
why dont you use android then?
I also have a Note 5 as well as iPhone 6. Why do you not want choices? are you such a sheep that you don’t want anything until apple tells you that you need it? You will be the one the thinks all those things listed are the greatest thing ever the minute apple tells you they are the best thing ever….
I use to own a note 5.
Sold it tho.
Phone was complete crap.
touchpiss made my phone almost unusable.
At the end of it all, I had to flash it with stock android.
Ridiculous how you have to modify a $700 phone for it to work out of the box.
Now I have an lgv10.
Best android phone so far.
Smart lock is awesome. Great android feature.
I would love to be able to add a todo to wunderlist or a note to evermore without having to unlock my phone. Just let us to it from the today widgets.
I would die to have 3G/LTE options in the small bottom menu. It’s a small thing but… pretty useful. Also, why they have in that very same menu stopwatch instead of an alarm? None of us is using as often the stopwatch as the alarm, so they can simple swap them. P.S. I agree on some points with you, on some others – not as much. But that’s really personal preferences and whatnot. But I assume/hope too, that they’ll do some major overhaul of iOS 10. We’ll see very soon indeed! :)
That would definitely be great. I agree.
Jeremy, here’s my take on your article :)
10: personally I wouldn’t use it, but I imagine others would like it.
9: I’m not really fussed about it. Perhaps some more (new) wallpapers would do the trick.
8: I can only imagine child mode being useful. Everybody else has their own phones to muck about.
7: I could imagine widgets on the search screens but not anywhere else. I like Android’s take but it’s not like I strongly prefer one approach or the other. I could see iOS becoming a little richer here and there, but not necessarily like Android, which can get very busy.
6: not really interested. I’m an ex photographer and I never allow iOS or OSX Photos to manage my photos. I offload them and manage them in a more “manual” manner, on a NAS. Cloud libraries would need tons of space and OSX libraries need loads of space and migration when upgrading hardware.
5: I’m not sure I’d like that. I can see the top section becoming thinner but the bottom section needs to be holdable. Other than that, I can only imagine Apple mimicking LG in the placement of the home button.
4: I’ll pass. I never held either of them to high value, as neither of them is available in my country (Google Now) or language (Siri).
3: agreed. This would be useful.
2: I can imagine some people using it but I’m not that bound to my phone.
1: hell no. Probably useful on the iPads, but not the way it is on Android. The Android approach looks very busy / anxious to me. On my Android phone there are many more little insignificant notifications I need to dismiss. I don’t need a little icon on the status bar for each and every one of them, reminding me they’re still there.
expanding on 1: what I *could* use is the extra space on the (iPad) statusbar being used as a quick task switcher between apps. Either between the x recently used apps or between “pinned” apps (like Facebook, Messenger, Safari etc), or a combination of the two.
iOS would benefit more if
– iCloud adopted a fully-fledged file management system, like Google Drive allows. I’d move app-specific folders inside a ~/.apps/ folder therein
– it allowed apps like Google Drive and Dropbox to expose their contents to all other apps, inside a unifier filesystem view (the equivalent of Volumes on OSX, where iCloud Drive and everything else would appear like volumes on the iOS Finder)
– the file access model evolved away from each app managing its own little pool of files. It can be VERY unproductive in work environments (e.g. try editing a Pages document stored in your Google Drive and storing the changes back)
Odd feeling reading this article. I wasn’t interested in any of these features on my iPhone or iPad.
Simplicity and consistency is one of the keys to the success of iOS. Cluttering things up with facial recognition leading to automatic unlocking as well as strange looking icons/wall papers/screen savers does not improve the experience. For this user at least.
I definitely agree about being able to customize the home page(s), folder/icon size, etc. I don’t care about that on my iPhone 6 especially, which for me is just functional. But I work & play at home and have an iPad 4 and now (yay) an iPad Pro, and believe me on the Pro especially, the icon/folder size and spacing just looks silly. It’s 4×5 or 5×4 depending on the orientation…the iPhone Plus models have more rows than that! I’d like to be able to either have more icon rows/columns or make the ones I have bigger, since there’s loads of empty space between them. Maybe I could actually see the tiny icons inside the folders, then. And have slightly longer folder names. Oh, those should wrap too, not append an ellipsis. Apple UI has been a bit suspect of late…I’ll chalk it up to a new device. But I really hope iOS 10 lets iPad Pro come into its own, and not just be a bigger iPad.
Apple can’t steal, they innovate, right?
For me this article was more a top 10 features why I dislike Android. A lot of them are bloatware and distracting from the essentials. For the iPhone 7 I wish that Apple would focus on creating a 12 hour battery life under fairly heavy usage. I don’t need more moving wallpapers and other gunk.
10. NO! For example: When my iPhone is at home it doesn’t mean I’m at home.
09. NO! It’s cool but useless.
08. MAYBE! On iPad.
07. NO!
06. YES! But don’t forget your data and privacy is lost.
05. NO! 3D Touch is better. If you need it, press harder and thats it.
04. NO!
03. MAYBE!
02. MAYBE!
01. NO!
1 x YES! 3 x MAYBE! 6 x NO!
Most of these features are useless. We don’t need so much “nice to have” features. This wouldn’t improve the iPhone.
I wouldn’t mind more functions added to control center, but I don’t want a cluttered and confusing menu screen like on Android. I don’t find any of these other suggestions attractive either.
– Location aware security doesn’t sound very secure. Just because you’re at home or in your car doesn’t mean the phone should be unlocked for anyone to pick up and access.
– Live wallpaper, Daydream Options, Customizable Home Screens, Folder Sizes, and Widgets are silly gimmicks which serve no function and drain battery life unnecessarily.
– Multi-user support could be interesting for families on an iPad, but it sounds like something that could waste a lot of storage space unnecessarily.
– Google Backup and Photos, or what you’re really asking for is cheap or free backup and storage. Google services are not cheap or free. You’re paying with your privacy.
– Virtual Buttons are a dumb idea that go against the iPhone’s most successful design innovations. A single, physical home button is perfect, no more or less. If the next iPhone lost the home button I wouldn’t buy it.
– Google Now? More “convenience” at the expense of privacy. I don’t trust Google. No thanks.
Just to make this point clear, I neither expect nor need to sway your opinion. Believe what you want, want what you want, it’s your choice. But the vast majority of the items discussed above are either UI -options- or better versions of things Apple has already introduced into iOS. And they aren’t mandatory – you can use them or not; choice is a good thing.
At one point, iOS didn’t let you choose your own Home Screen wallpaper. Now it offers two types of animated wallpaper, one with a physics engine, the other without. Is having the option to clutter your screen with your own photo rather than jet black a gimmick? What about an animated background like iOS Dynamic Wallpaper? What about iOS Live Wallpaper? Explain to me why no one should have these choices, even if you don’t like them. Or why they should not want them to be better, if that can be achieved (as the aging Dynamic suggests they can be) with minimal battery drain? If you’re just going to throw everything into the ‘it serves no function’ category, then Apple should pull its existing Live and Dynamic Wallpaper, because they’re just ‘gimmicks,’ right?
Similarly, if your home is secure, or you are the only person in your car, being able to skip the lock screen makes a ton of sense. Having a multi-user iPad is important to families and schools that can’t afford to buy a new iPad for every single person who might benefit from using one part of the day. Some of the ‘silly gimmicks’ you dismiss actually have some value to some people – they aren’t for every person, but nothing is.
a lot of ios new design elements as early as ios 6 were taken from android . apple is always late for everything. it took 3 iphone iterations to shoot video from your camera, and the same for the ability to send an mms. so yeah android takes chances and forces apple to implement new features including your notification bar and your fingerprint unlocking and 6plus phones.
Of course many Android users won’t get to use many of those features because they won’t get updated to the latest version of Android.
those have been features for years on android. they don’t need to be on the latest to have All that and more.
Google Photos is free and unlimited with automatic backup on iPhone too.
I can’t get to the list, because my eyes won’t stop bleeding from THAT ULTRA-FUUUUUGLY INTERFACE!!
For the love of Maud… who the F**K!! can put up with that??!! “Functionality” all you like, just nevah EVAH give me that pathetically disgusting design!! WOW.
My modest opinion as an Android for many years until recently:
The single thing I really miss about Android? **The back button**. It’s just plainly better implemented. I hate seeing on Safari both a back button for the browser and a back button to the previous application. I always get confused.
As for widgets, I used to use them a lot. But with my iPhone 6s I think most of their functionality is covered with 3D touch and the notification widgets.
Besides, I think that multiple user accounts would be a very nice addition too.
Finally, I still use several Google services, since I just think they work better: Google Inbox, Google Photos, or Google Maps.
This article/author portrays as concern trying to help IOS but indirectly try to show look the short comings in ISO and Android is better. In reality, IOS is built on intuitive simpler principle to have less headache to user vs Android with more customization with added features here and there.
If you truly believe what you are saying, Apple should remove features from iOS to continuously make it simpler, and thus ‘less headache to user.’
Except no one wants that.
And I don’t think Android is better than iOS. As I said up front, I wouldn’t give up my iOS devices for Android replacements. But I think iOS could benefit from having some of Android’s features. If you aren’t capable of understanding that, I honestly don’t know what you’re doing reading articles like this, assuming you even read the article at all.
How about wishing for the addition of warm light adjustment for evening use and prevention of eye disease? Bluetooth controls on the slide up? No?
Flashlight on with a real long force press? I couldn’t agree with most of your suggestions, as I find Android’s IO a mess. Unlocking the phone is easy enough with the fingerprint reader. Don’t share your phone. If your kid wants to play with yours, get them an Amazon Fire tablet. Five for $250, so they can break a bunch before they learn the value of tech.
Interface changes are for the easily bored, Jeremy. Better to put it down and leave it alone than play with it too much.
As someone who used Android for about 6 years before switching to an iPhone last month, I really miss having a back button. Functionality was way better than Apple’s “sometimes” approach, not to mention that I prefer the virtual multitask button as opposed to double clicking the home button.
Virtual buttons are terrible. Please let Appld never do this. I love, love the physical home button.
The only “yes” that came to mind as I reviewed this list: multi-user support. The rest I would never use and don’t care about. Gimmicks all.
Only having multiple user accounts is actually useful. And even for that, it will be actually more useful on iPads than iPhones.
And emergency services are actually not needed but its a convenience to have them.
As for iCloud, the free tier is enough for all backups other than photos and may be music (for large collections). I specifically use Photos on Mac to backup and instead of expecting more iCloud storage, I want the Photos app to become even smarter.
All other things are pure gimmicks.
And Siri is doing just fine. I don’t want Google to steal all my info and show be some bloody ads at every nook and corner. They are definitely going to improve Siri to whole new level.
Surprise everyone, I just found out android got most of its features by copying from the iOS jailbreak community, hell, even google backed some of those “projects.
I am very shocked, to say the least.
omg, thats all the reasons i dropped android after trying for 1 year. pass the puke-bukket please
@Auntitroll
Seriously?
Trying to defend google, fail.
Trying to use the free app argument does not apply to everything I said.
Lets sea what google does.
1. scan my email.
2. Go thru my search history with out my permission.
3. track every fucking site I visit.
4. Put youtube videos full of freaking adds.
Its not just 1 add per video, nope, its 3 or 4 ads during a video.
5. They can access my data, on android 4.4.4 at least.
Oh, another thing, I pay for my apps.
As a developer, I really like to support others and their work.
next
Widgets, I actually want to see it implemented in the Spotlight instead. Rather than waiting for Apple to supply everything, let user selected applications show their content there. As we can see with the News and spots, Apple only provide this to certain markets. Mine only have the search box, recent contact and recent apps. No suggested apps, suggested location or news at all.
While at it, I also want a better separation about what the Spotlight and the current widget screen. The two is going to overlap each others and selection of putting what widget where became a matter of subjective preference, which leads to unneeded duplication.
For seeing the info, I’d prefer improvement to the icon’s notification label, and 3D press (or long press for older devices) to pop up notification overlay to peek for the notifications.
Virtual button, I’m with the Windows Phone users. For god sake keep the physical buttons.
The feature, no, sanity, that I desire more from Apple is actually the Photo apps. Option to keep original file name, better sorting logic (by name, or by file creation date), a better structured folder structure and IPTC tagging support. That include photo inside Album that are sorted by date the files are added into it. It’s horrible and nightmare to organize.
Emergency alert are irrelevant to me, but that’s because I live in 3rd world country with no such decent system available to the citizen.
11. more open to any other installed apps to be able “communicate” between them, send and receive data, entanglement
User accounts on a personal device? Author officially has lost its mind.
iPads and AppleTV’s are very much multi user devices here.
It is a personal device, it was created that way for a reason. Apple ID is personal and iOS device is personal. It works best this way. Just because people can think of all kinds of ways to use it doesn’t mean it was designed to use that way.
And if you can’t buy everyone an iPad you shouldn’t be in Apple ecosystem anyway.
Multi-User Support. Probably not really needed on the iPhone, but on the iPads and on AppleTV it would be really nice to have it integrated into the OS instead of no support or it being integrated into each app.
I’ve been an iPhone user since the 3Gs and just switched to an LG V10 a week ago from an iPhone 6. At first I hated it and there are still things that are no where near as good as an iPhone. Like notifications, volume control, headphone support, physical mute switch, video quality, select/cut/copy/paste. That said, there are things about Android that put iOS to shame. Some of them you already mentioned.
I would point out the Android Gallery. I love the way Android splits up your images into different folders depending on where they come from. All my photos taken in the phone’s camera are stored in the camera folder separate from images saved from the web or various apps. It makes it so much easier to browse your images on the phone and offload them to your computer. I hate that Apple seems to be forcing us to use their Photos app on the Mac. I like to manually organize my images in my own folder structure and that becomes harder to do now that Image Capture doesn’t let you sort by aperture or location or anything else most iPhone shot photos have in their metadata that saved images from the web don’t have.
I also like the widgets. Don’t knock them till you try them. Some of them are great and iOS not having them just seems like Apple is being too heavy handed in telling you how you’re supposed to use your own phone. Same with being able to put your icons where you want rather than having them autoalign to a grid. It makes it hard to see your wallpaper when they do.
There are too many little things about Android that are super handy and would be hard for me to give up if I go back to iOS. Like being able to view the details of a file, having a file browser to begin with, being able to hold down on a video in Chrome and save it to your phone. Raw photo shooting with manual controls, manual controls while shooting video, the ability to separate web browser tabs into separate Windows you can switch between using the General multitasker switched. The ability to change your icons or launchers. Apple is supposed to be the company selling to creative types yet they offer the least amount of creative control and want us to all be drones telling us how were supposed to use our phones and how they are supposed to look. It’s like a dictatorship.
None of that even gets I to some of the nice hardware features some Android phones have like removable SD cards, batteries, wireless charging, water resistence, dual front facing cameras (one wide angle and one standard), the ability to shoot 1080p video with the front facing camera (iPhone 6S is still stuck at 720p even though the sensor can handle 1080p), it blaster to use as a tv/device remote, built in FM radio, notification LED and so on.
After using a flagship Android device for a week I’ve realized there are a lot of things Apple really needs to catch up on. Things that are super nice to have. I still love iPhones and I may go back for some of the things I love about them, but it’s going to be really hard not that I’ve tasted the forbidden fruit and seen how much bigger the world really is outside the Apple walled garden.
#6 big time!!!! 5 GB Free Storage only?… even Microsoft gives 15GB free.. it’s like they said to themselves, Dropbox gives only 2GB… so if we give 5GB, we are at least better than the worst free storage option.
give your users 20GB free and leave it at that.. if users want more storage after that, they will pay.. right now, My backup of my iPhone and iPad take up 3GB total.. not much left for anything else… I know many will say just pay 1$ for more storage per month but when many companies offer free storage locally on Mac using good old fashioned cable and Apple’s Image Capture app.
“the experience made plain that even a sub-$100 Android phone is competent enough today to serve as a more capable alternative to a $199 iPod touch.”
During Black Friday at Best Buy the Moto E 2nd gen was $10. $10 freaking dollars. And that phone crushes the iPod touch as a media player and you have GPS capability. And since that phone has LTE you could use it as a cheap replacement as long as you swap an active Verizon post paid sim card.
I don’t and won’t take the iPod touch seriously. I see at least one sub $20 Android phone (no contract) every week on slickdeals.com and as funny as it may sound the cheap phones have SD card slots.
Maybe multi-user support for iPads.
10 – No! Theft can happen anywhere!
9 – Maybe! Could be a possible battery killer.
8 – iPad yes | iPhone no. I really wouldn’t give my phone to another person to play with.
7 – No! Just place your most used icons on the Home screen. It is what I do now.
6 – Yes! Free would be nice. :-)
5 – Yes! The rumor mill is that Apple is thinking of eliminating the Home button in the near future to add more landscape to the display.
4 – Sure! Take that technology and incorporate it into either Siri or Notifications.
3 – I can take it or leave it. I have gotten used to what Apple already offers, so not a big deal.
2 – iPad yes | iPhone no. Again possibly a battery killer. Plus when your phone is not in use, it will either be in a holster, pocket, purse, etc. So what would be the point of it.
1 – I would be fine with it. Able to customize what fits your needs.
The one technology that I hope Apple would incorporate is the wireless charging (possibly iPhone 7). This would be extremely useful for my son. He has gone through at least a half dozen chargers within one year. Crush, Kill, Destroy as we call him. :-)
More controls to manage and add custom Tones/Audio at the app and notification level. For example, I get alerts from Twitter when certain people tweet but the alert sound is the same as email and there is no way to change that. I’d rather have different audio cues to know alert “A” is an email and alert “B” is from Nuzzel and alert “C” is from Twitter.
While these are cool things my problem is that they are merely a superficial look at it. One of the main pain points a lot of my friends who have Android devices complain about is battery life. These great looking things listed can all have an effect on battery life if not done right. If 3rd party devs get involved then Apple is no longer able to make sure that widgets, themes, menu bars aren’t leaking memory or constantly checking the internet in the background. When the battery on the iPhone dies quicker though guess who gets the blame from consumers? hint, it’s not the 3rd party dev. Sure these are all good ideas and most are also doable if you Jailbreak. Should Apple impliment some of them sure but I’d rather they fix the big ticket items right now instead.