Google should steal these iOS features for Android

After the recent announcement of Apple’s iPhone 6S and iOS 9 (along with the confusing iPad Pro), I started thinking that there is a lot Android could learn (or just steal) from. There are a few features Google has yet to implement or get right with Android even to this day.

Also, due to Android being on more devices than iOS, I won’t be talking about things like build quality or better cameras because Android is meant to run on many different types of devices, all at different price points. It’s not fair to say Android should get a better camera, like the iPhone’s, when this would be a manufacturer issue and not actually an Android problem.

Fast Updates

Google may release new versions of Android every year or so but good luck actually seeing it come to your phone. Even the most expensive high-end Android phones usually don’t see the latest version of Android until about six months later. If you have a low-end or mid-range device phone, your chances of seeing multiple updates in its lifetime are slim.

Apple’s iOS 9, on the other hand, was officially announced on June 8 with public beta testing starting on July 9. A month later, on September 9, the company unveiled the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus running an official version of iOS 9. Both will be available around the world on September 25. iOS 9 actually came out a bit before the iPhone 6S on September 16. Not only is that a fast release, but the amount of included devices to get the iOS 9 update on the same day is huge. Even as far back as the iPad 2, which was unveiled in March 2011, by Steve Jobs, will be receiving the iOS 9 update. Look at all the devices that saw the update on September 16.

I understand Android is a much larger ecosystem with many more devices having to be coded for the latest update, but the wait is just crazy. You would think at least the flagship devices from the top manufactures would receive the latest updates in a timely fashion but that isn’t the case. Once Google creates the next version of Android, it has to be passed down to the device manufacturers and after that the carriers perform tests of their own. This creates a sluggish release and most of the time results in bugs which aren’t taken care of until the next update. You could be waiting up to an entire year to receive the next update just to fix small bugs you got from the last update. It has gotten a bit quicker over the years but is still comically bad compared to how Apple handles the process.

Full Phone Backups

One of the first things I noticed when I made the switch to Android from iOS was that there was no way of backing up my device. If it got lost, stolen, broke, or I just wanted another phone, there was no easy way of loading all data to it. This became extremely annoying and frustrating. The most insane part was the only way to do a full backup was to root your phone in order to install an app that could back it up. You couldn’t even get an app from the Play Store without having root access.

Nowadays there are apps like Helium, which can backup your phone without ROOT access, but this is not something users should have to install, but should be included directly into Android. Other manufacturers, like Samsung, have backup tools as well, but they aren’t that easy to use and, again, shouldn’t even be needed.

With iOS you can back up to iCloud or plug the iPhone into your computer to back up with iTunes. Very simple and hassle-free. I have had problems with iPhones and Android devices, both having to fully return the device for a new one. When I returned the iPhone 3GS and got a new one, I just plugged it into my computer and iTunes set everything up just like how I had it. When I returned my Android phone and got a new one, it was basically hours of re-downloading apps and entering passwords for each one. I am not an app-heavy person, but I can not imagine how horrible it would be for people with tons and tons of apps installed.

Google has said the next version of Android, Marshmallow, will be able to backup all your app data to Google Drive for free. It has a limit of only 25MB per app, but at least we are heading in the right direction.

No Bloat

I am so tired of paying huge amounts of money for high-end phones only to have half their internal storage gone towards useless pre-installed apps. The carrier ones are especially annoying because they never offer anything great and are usually ripoffs of better apps. Feel free to make all the apps your want, but release them in the Play Store and tell your customers to get them. Don’t force these apps down their throats.

I bought an unlocked phone from one carrier and use it on another carrier, but still have the first carrier’s garbage installed. Obviously, I’m never going to use their apps to check my plan or whatever, but I’m forced to have them installed forever. Again, this is an unlocked phone that I paid full price for. I have no connection with this carrier at all and there is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to uninstall their apps.

Manufacturer bloat is sometimes as bad as the carriers’. I can understand that each manufacturer has to give consumers a reason to choose their phones. And when most of your competition is also using the same operating system, it becomes more difficult. They have to create unique apps and user interfaces to get consumers to buy their products over the rest. Fair enough. However, it is extremely annoying having apps like Facebook pre-installed on my phone. The most infuriating thing is being unable to remove them. Android is supposed to be all about choice and personal freedom, but having apps like Facebook forcefully installed ruins all of that.

I’m sure everyone has installed an app from the Play Store and seen a huge list of requesting permissions for you to accept. I appreciate being shown this list as it gives me the decision to install it or not. When apps are pre-installed, that choice is taken away, and since you can’t uninstall them, those apps can “spy” on you forever. I can just picture Mark Zuckerberg sitting at his desk, laughing away, knowing that you can never escape his control.

Apple knew from the first day of the App Store’s existence that this would be annoying and forced the carriers to agree to not include any extra apps on the iPhone. They also don’t pre-install any third-party apps.

Uniformity/Simplicity

This is another one that is tricky to fix. As I mentioned already, Android has a huge user base with different devices, making it very difficult to keep everyone on the same page. Google does a good job creating guidelines, such as Material Design, for everyone to follow, but many developers do not care to implement them into their apps, creating a problem when actually using many Android devices as nothing ever matches very well. There really isn’t an easy way to fix this without having harsh penalties towards developers who don’t modify their apps to reflect the new design principles, and that would go against what Android is all about.

However, there is no excuse for large manufacture skins. They have the money to hire the best designers in the world and their skins should reflect that. I hate buying a new Android phone only to instantly replace the keyboard, messaging app, and launcher because they don’t match anything else or function horribly.

Technically, the purest form of Android would be on a Nexus device. Definitely the smoothest of all Android phones, but compared to the latest iPhone, it’s really not that smooth. There are always little bugs or animation glitches that don’t make it perfect compared to the iPhone. Anyone who has used a Nexus device and an iPhone will know exactly what I mean.

There are other little things like the icons being all different sizes. Luckily, aftermarket launchers like Nova Launcher are adding uniformed icons that are visually the same size while still maintaining different shapes, but this shouldn’t be something aftermarket launchers even have to worry about and definitely already built into Android.

Plus, features like the notifications bar including quick toggles. Only recently did stock Android get this feature and it’s not implemented as well as it is in iOS, in my opinion.

Other things like showing the actual battery percentage at the top, as far as I know, still isn’t possible in stock Android. Just look at the status bar on the iPhone compared to the Nexus 6. Both are probably about 44%, but it’s impossible to tell on the Nexus 6 since it won’t tell you real numbers.

Android provides a lot of unnecessary work.

Battery Efficiency

The iPhone 6 has an 1810mAh battery and the iPhone 6S has a 1715mAh battery. Apple made it smaller this time around! Both batteries are very small compared to Android flagships and yet they last roughly the same amount of time. For a phone with a battery that is basically half of an Android phone’s, it should be much worse. One reason they get such long lasting performance is because iPhone’s barely lose any battery while in standby mode. When you aren’t using it, you basically aren’t using the battery either. Android phones will have double the size battery and lose 4%-20% just while you are asleep. Again, this is with basically double the size! If the iPhone drained that much, you would go to sleep just to wake up to basically a dead phone every morning.

Fortunately, Google sees this as a huge problem too and is working on a new feature called Doze for Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It is tasked with watching how you use your phone and adjusting certain things when you aren’t using it to give you maximum standby battery life. Will this feature realistically improve battery life? I can’t say right now, but we can certainly hope it will. The only problem I can see is where Google says Doze will only work when your phone is perfectly still. Once you start moving, the feature turns off. This means if your phone is in your pocket all day, literally doing nothing, Doze will seemingly not be working and battery drain will be the same. If you leave your phone on a desk all day, that is when Doze would be saving you battery. I think, overall, it’s meant for when you are asleep and won’t be looking at your phone at all. Also, don’t forget Doze is only for devices running Marshmallow, meaning you probably won’t be receiving it on your device anytime soon. Either way, this is a huge area that Android needs improvement in.

Rogue apps are another huge problem for battery life. Most of the time, apps use what I would consider to be a normal amount of battery drain, but every once in a while a ‘noob’ developer will release an app that works great yet murders battery life. Even huge apps like Facebook are always notorious for using an absurd amount of battery life. Whether the developer isn’t as skilled to create an app with battery efficiency or a large developer does not spend the time making their app energy-efficient, this has got to change. Apple’s iOS never runs into these problems, and Google definitely needs to investigate how they do it, and implement it into Android.

Tap To Top

On any iOS device, you can just tap the top of the screen in any app to get back to the top of it. This is amazing for long webpages where you would reach the bottom, but want to go back to the top; all you had to do was tap and you were there. With Android, you have to scroll for what feels like days. After knowing a feature like this exist elsewhere, it feels so primitive having to physically scroll to the top. I assume Apple has a patent on this feature, which is why no one has ripped it off yet. Samsung, though, did try to clone it on their Galaxy S III, but asked users to tap the phsysical top of the device to get to the top. It wasn’t as clean to use since the device was much larger than an iPhone at the time, but the worst part was it only worked in certain Samsung supported apps. Something like Apple’s ‘tap to top’ feature would be highly welcomed in Android.

So what do you think — which features does Google need to consider implementing in Android?

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