Apple are you listening?
Today we’ve brought you a list of things that we believe Apple’s iPhone really needs to learn from Google’s Android. Both the operating systems have been in the market since quite a long time, and have indeed served their audiences with some incredible features over the years.
However, there are a few things that the Android OS does which invite the envy of those using iOS on their iPhones. With each release of a new iPhone, Apple fans are secretly wishing that they’ll be added to the device, but its makers have a different plan.
The latest iOS release has brought with it several important features like fresh stock apps, better Apple Pay, battery and performance improvements and much more. However, many owners of iOS gadgets still want a number of traits that those on Android have been using for years. Let us now take a look at some of the things we wish to see on the iPhone which are already available for the Android brethren.
Open NFC
After many years, Apple finally came around to equipping the iPhone with NFC support, but there is a huge catch to this. The functionality is not open for developers to exploit, as it only works with Apple Pay, the company’s high profile mobile payment and digital wallet service.
When it comes to Android, right from the beginning of its introduction, NFC access resulted in developers coming up with a number of awesome innovations. These included NFC tags which can be used to change the settings of your handset in a blink, the ability to easily pair with digital cameras and of course easy transfer of content between two devices.
Apple took its sweet time to open access to the fingerprint scanner as well, but it did so in the end. We’re hoping the same will be possible with the NFC feature of the iPhone as well.
Launchers and customization
Let us put it this way; you can gather ten iPhones as well as ten different Android phones together, and check the way their interface looks. Except for the wallpaper and the arrangement of apps, nothing else is different on all of the ten iPhones.
That’s not the case with Androids. Due to the high level of customization features available on the interface, every Android can be tailored to its owner’s liking. A prime feature here is support for different launchers which change the way the homescreen and the menus look. There are tons of them available for download through the Google Play store.
Hell, you can also make your Android phone’s interface look like that of an iOS or Windows phone if you wish to. That’s not the case with the iPhone which could use some visual flexibility.
More choices in all price brackets
The only people who can buy an iPhone are those who can afford to spend over $650 on a smartphone. On the other hand, Android handsets are accessible in every budget nowadays. You can buy good ones for as low as $100, opt for a mid-range device that could go up $350, or even purchase a high-end phone for under $650.
The only time Apple tried to take such a step was when the mid-range iPhone 5c was launched with a $350 price tag in 2013. There has been no such offering ever since, let alone any entry-level device. So, for anyone who wishes to buy an iPhone, there’s no other option than managing to gather $650 somehow. This is the prime reason for all those ‘kidney selling’ jokes that emerge each time a new device is launch.
Expandable memory
Storage is a huge deal these days, with photographs and videos having become heavier than ever and other day-to-day files too occupying much space. In such times, it already really hurts that the iPhones are sold with 16GB of base memory. And rubbing salt on the wound is the fact that there’s no microSD card slot present on the handset.
Although Google’s Nexus devices themselves don’t offer this functionality, almost all other manufacturers grant microSD card slots to their devices. This takes away the worries related to shortage of space. So, even if the smartphone is offering 8GB of base storage, buyers can expand it further easily by paying a very small amount.
Back in the day, 32GB used to be the limit of a microSD card’s capacity, but these days 200GB cards are being sold as well. Moreover, some Android smartphones are even capable of taking cards as big as 2TB in size.
Widgets
It’s hard to believe that even after all these years, the iPhone still does not feature actual widgets that can be placed on the homescreen. Yes, Apple did introduce them in a limited manner in 2014, but they can in no way compete with the flexibility of Android’s widgets.
The widgets on iOS gadgets can only be seen in the notifications area which some people prefer to keep as less crowded as possible. The good part is that at least Apple is allowing third-party developers to create their own widgets.
On Android, widgets are more comprehensive and can be placed anywhere on the homescreen or even the lockscreen for that matter. They can be resized according to your convenience moreover. It’s these small little features that give Android widgets a definite lead over those on iOS. We just hope Apple realizes this before its next big software release.
