The iOS 8 features Android already has
After the announcement of iOS 8 yesterday, it must be said that the Apple operating system looks much better. The reasons for this is that developers, designers and executives from Apple stopped judging the capabilities of Android and started copying Google's platform.
Tim Cook’s team knows very well how to ensure for a closed platform. During the keynote conference for developers, it was very apparent that fans need to have an Apple iPhone, iPad and Mac to make the most efficient use of their devices. This however is not smart, because we live a time of open platforms and services. Thus, it would be smarter to give more freedom to the user and not force him to belong to the masses.
For the past eleven months, we saw the same recipe overa and over again: Tim Cook took the stage, spoke ill of the competition, was applauded and then, together with his team, showed what other companies had already done succesfully, and to top it all off, he calls it his own. In the presentation of iOS 7, the differences to Android 4.2.2 were minimal, and this time it was no different.
Below, I’ve created a list of the so-called unique features that were added to iOS 8, much to the amusement of Android users who have been making use of these for quite some time now.
"Hey, Siri!"
A lot of the presentation of the new Apple OS sounded like a "deja vu", though one of the most obvious piece of thievery was the "Hey, Siri." It’s impossible not to associate the command to our known "Ok, Google." But as if that was not enough for us to make reference to Google Now, now iPhone and iPad users no longer need to touch the device to give a command, they can just do it by voice. Welcome to the "touchless" universe!
iCloud Drive
I swear that when the senior Vice President of Apple’s software engineering, Craig Federighi, announced iCloud Drive, the first thing I thought was of an integration between Apple’s and Google’s cloud services, but that evidently wasn’t it. Now iCloud can be used for storage and images captured with the iPhone using iPhoto are automatically synchronized, something that Google already added to Android a long time ago.
Predictive Keyboard
Undoubtedly, users of devices running iOS should be very happy with the possibility of predictive text thanks to the new keyboard that was just presented. One feature that already exists for Android since 2012, at least through the Swiftkey app, was that the system will not only predict the word that the user enters, but also the next word you'll likely type.
In addition, Apple decided to finally open the doors for virtual keyboards from third-party developers. It is this kind of freedom that was missing from Tim Cook’s platform. Perhaps more features, such as Swype, will be integrated into other iOS applications.
Health
S Health, LG Health, HealthKit ... call them what you will, but all platforms already have their own monitors to track vital data from users. It turns out that none of the available services launched on the Android platform have proven to be accurate, and I can’t really believe that the first version of Health will be. So, nothing new in this area, Apple just added one more feature to follow the current fitness trend, which Samsung has been adopting for a long time already.
Widgets
IOS 8 now supports widgets, but are still limited to the central reporting platform. With this, the splash screen remains restricted to non-intelligent application icons. That's right, Android users have smart icons, which are also called widgets, an innovation that has been around since the release of Android OS.
Conclusion
Taking the last example of the introduction of widgets to the notification center of iOS, Apple engineers remain reluctant in offering intelligent icons to the UI of their devices. Apple really has some nerve in saying that Android users are switching to iOS because they seek a better experience in relation to the operating system and mobile devices, when in fact, they are now integrating features that the Google operating system has offered for eons.
What is your take about the new iOS 8? A simple copy of Android’s best features or do you think Apple can do it better?
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