5 Features iOS 5 Copied from Android

Posted by: Umair H. Peracha 7 June 2011 12 Comments

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Apple, so far, has been the industry leader in innovation whether it was PCs, MP3 Players, Smart Phones or (new) Tablet Computers. Apple has always been seen as company that drives the industry toward new heights by introducing user friendly technologies.

Back in the days of boring command line computing, it was Apple that revolutionized the PC market by introducing Graphical User Interface. It was Apple’s innovation in the PC that led to a completely revolutionized way of using computers at home, work, and beyond . Apple was also the main force behind portable MP3 players with its line on iPod products. Afterwards, we saw every Tom, Dick, and Harry copying the idea and making cheap (or not so cheap) MP3 devices. The ERA of modern Smart Phones is also due to the innovative touch screen devices from Apple called the iPhone. The iPhone surely changed the market trend of Smart Phones and we saw great deal of innovation in touch screen devices – of course of all of which Apple was the leader up till now.

Unfortunately, the Industry leader has fallen behind in the race of innovation – at least in the smart phone arena. Apple introduced iOS 5 featrures (at the recent World Wide Developers Conference 2011), the latest operating system for its handheld, touch screen devices (iPhone, iPad etc). The iOS 5, although introduced a number of new technologies that were applauded by a number of technology enthusiasts but also disappointed a great number of other people by following the footsteps of Android. Below are the features that iOS5 has “bought” from Android.

Notification Center

Apple iOS 5, up till now, lacked a very important feature called the Notification Center. iOS’s previous notification system was a disaster. It interrupted whatever it was you were doing, it forced you to choose what to do right away, and there was no way to keep track of all of them in one single place. The notification center is responsible for keeping the notifications for your (such as missed call, SMS etc) while you are busy in another task (such as playing game) and Android had it long ago. Awesome feature, right? Well! Apple copied this feature from Android.

Lock screen

Launching apps right from the lock screen was something Android was good at. Samsung’s TouchWiz 4.0 and HTC’s Sense 3.0 both support this feature. Apple iOS 5 now does too. Do you know that Apple is suing both of these companies for copying iOS. Ironic, isn’t it?

Twitter integration

Android allows you to tweet from “where ever” you are in the phone. The Twitter Integration has been awesome in Android. Now the same is happening in iOS5. iOS users will be able to tweet from their browsers, photo gallery, YouTube and Google Maps. By the way, Android is still better in this due to its openness, any third party software can have this kind of integration.

Tabbed-browsing

Tabbed-Browsing is something Google Android introduced in the recently launched HoneyComb OS for Tablet Computers. Safari’s version for the iPad is getting it too. Well this is just an obvious feature to bring from the desktop version of Safari, but the iPad has been available for a long time and interestingly this feature is being introduced “after” Google has introduced it for HoneyComb based tablets. Yup!

PC-Freedom

In previous versions of iOS, one has to connect the phone to a PC to download software updates. Wait a minute! You need a PC in order to fully use a Smart Phone? lame! Apparently, this has been the ideology of Apple up until recently. Apple just got the brilliant idea to separate the two. Wait a minute once again! Isn’t this what Android has been doing for ages. Damn Right! Apple did it once again by following the footsteps of Android. Good going!

What do you say of a company which announces most of the features of an upcoming software / hardware in response to whatever the competitor is doing? Do let us know in comments!

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