iOS vs Android: Features that Android Needs Right Now

At WWDC'21, Apple announced the iOS 15, and it is coming with some promising upgrades and features. The operating system provided by Apple has always tried to keep the customers and users first. The new iOS comes with a bunch of features and some of these should definitely be a part of Android. Here we list some of the iOS 15 features that should make their way to Android sooner rather than later.

Privacy Features

iOS has been winning the race for privacy features for quite some time. Android seems to be lagging behind. iOS 15 brings app privacy report to the table which might look similar to Android's app privacy dashboard but is different. Users can go to privacy settings on iOS and turn on Record App Activity. This will save a week's summary of when apps access the location or microphone.

It will also show if any third party app or website is accessing your information via apps. Even the mail app has more privacy protection features. After adding your email account, users now get a prompt to hide the IP address and load emails privately. Load emails privately will prevent email tracking.

Safari

Safari also sees a number of new features. Users can now hide their IP address in Safari as well. Safari brings the address bar to the bottom. The floating address bar at the bottom also goes in the background when scrolling. There are new gesture additions too. Users can now swipe left on the search bar to open a new tab. Users can also switch between tabs by sliding on the search bar. Chrome has this option too, but the address bar is on the top, which makes it difficult to navigate. Users can also swipe up on the address bar to get to the tab switcher, where all the recent tabs can be seen in a tile form.

One major feature that brought to Safari with iOS 15 is extension support. This is a much-needed feature on Chrome. Currently, most of the extensions are about ad blocking, but users might be able to see much more. The Safari start page option comes with background image options where users can change the background of their browsing page.

Siri

It is a commonly known fact that Google Assistant is better than Siri, but one feature that takes the cake is Siri's ability to work offline. In iOS 15, all the audio requests made to Siri will be processed on the device, meaning that it can run faster and get a lot done without being connected to the internet. Another impressive option is to send things on your screen. All a user needs to do is ask Siri to share send the object on the screen to contact, and it will come up with a prompt.

Live Text

The Live Text feature on iOS 15 looks a lot like Google Lens, but it is faster and more accurate. Users can long-press on the message bar and the option of Text from Camera comes up. This works even when the camera is moving, shifting focus really fast.

Find My

Apple has made its "Find My" feature even better with iOS 15. iOS 15, an iPhone's location is traceable even when it is turned off. That's due to the new "Find My" network option. With iOS 15, the iPhone stays in a low power mode even when it's turned off, and it acts like an air tag allowing any nearby iOS devices to pick up the Bluetooth signal and send back its location. According to Apple, the location tracking will even keep working when an iPhone is reset to factory settings with activation lock enabled. These are features that we really need on android's find my device feature

iCloud+

Apple is also bringing some additional features with iCloud+. The Private Relay feature, which Apple's own VPN feature, makes sure that all traffic from your iPhone gets encrypted and not even Apple can see them. The Hide my Email feature lets you use random and disposable email addresses to sign into things an even lets you send emails without sharing your real email address.

A lot of these features are extremely useful and takes the iOS vs Android debate to a whole new level.  Google can bring in some of these features in their future updates to keep the competition going.