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Android and iOS are glorious cell working programs and succesful choices in your on a regular basis smartphone wants. They’ve grown extra related through the years, however there are nonetheless variations between the platforms. That is why some folks desire one over the opposite.
Like with most tech merchandise, new variations are launched yearly, and the identical is true for 2022. That 12 months, Google launched Android 13 in August, which is offered on the perfect Android telephones, and Apple made iOS 16 public in September. Each updates provide new capabilities, and the businesses hold engaged on them after these releases. As such, Google launched the Android 13 March Function Drop, and Apple is countering with iOS 16.4.
On this article, we take a look at what’s new within the newest releases and evaluate the unique Android 13 and iOS 16.
Android 13 March Function Drop vs. iOS 16.4
Google and Apple do not provide a single massive launch yearly. As an alternative, their software program groups regularly carry minor enhancements to present OS variations. That is why we’re iOS 16.4 and the Android 13’s March Function Drop for Pixel telephones. Each carry a slew of enhancements to the respective platforms. Given the numbers, you may inform they are not even the primary updates to hit the platforms. Apple has three extra level releases, and Google revealed the December Function Drop earlier than the one for March, which we’re additionally incorporating on this rundown.
Internet apps lastly get push notification help in iOS 16.4
Apple has lengthy been dragging its toes and is just now including a vital characteristic that Android has supported for ages: Internet apps can lastly ship you notifications. Whereas Android means that you can arrange notifications for any web site, it’s worthwhile to add a web site to the house display on iOS to allow notifications for it. As soon as that is executed, they behave extra like native apps and get some elevated entry, with notifications being the newest to be added. For those who’re involved about notification overload, don’t fret. Apps must particularly request the notification permission, identical to on Android. In associated additions, Apple now additionally means that you can add net apps to your own home display by means of third-party browsers like Chrome.
Apple steals a prime Pixel characteristic in iOS 16.4
Only a few months after Google launched Clear Calling for the Google Pixel 7 and seven Professional (which we’re speaking about slightly additional beneath on this article), Apple is bringing an identical characteristic to iOS 16.4. The corporate’s Voice Isolation possibility is turning into out there for normal telephone calls. Each Clear Calling and Voice Isolation intention to make it simpler for folks on the opposite finish of the road to listen to you extra clearly if you’re in a loud surroundings. Beforehand, Apple’s Voice Isolation was solely out there for calls by means of the corporate’s personal providers, like Face Time.
Fall detection on the Google Pixel Watch in March Function Drop
Like Apple, Google can be wanting on the opposite facet and copies what is sensible. With its March Pixel Function Drop, the Pixel Watch obtained help for fall detection, which is meant to robotically name emergency providers for you in case you fall and stay unresponsive. The same characteristic has been out there for the Apple Look ahead to some time now.
Synced up timers on Pixel telephones and good residence with March Function Drop
For anybody dwelling within the Google ecosystem, Google has added help for synced timers throughout good residence audio system and Pixel telephones. This makes it simpler to see how a lot time is left at a look, as good audio system lack a show that would present you this data.
Safety key help in iOS 16.3
Apple launched iOS 16.3 in January 2023. It’s primarily a bug-fixing launch, however one key characteristic brings iOS as much as par with Android. Beginning with iOS 16.3, you may defend your Apple ID with a {hardware} safety key equivalent to a YubiKey, which might safe your on-line accounts.
Once you activate this feature, you should pair a safety key together with your Apple ID to switch the two-factor authentication code you normally get if you check in to a brand new Apple system. Then, you may unlock your account together with your password and {hardware} safety key. This is without doubt one of the most secure choices, because it requires entry to the bodily safety key. It is nice to see Apple catching up with Google on this regard.
You do not have to authenticate your self together with your {hardware} key each time you unlock your system or make a purchase order on the App Retailer. That is primarily meant to authenticate your self on new units.
Freeform and Superior Knowledge Safety in iOS 16.2
Earlier than iOS 16.3, there was iOS 16.2. Probably the most important new characteristic to return to that model is unequalled in comparison with the Android onboard instruments. Apple affords the Freeform app on iPads, iPhones, and macOS computer systems that brings a clean canvas you can fill with notes, drawings, and attachments. It will also be used collaboratively with pals and colleagues. It additionally affords the potential for every kind of tasks, so long as your friends use Apple units.
One other superior iOS characteristic is Superior Knowledge Safety for iCloud, which encrypts iCloud backups, together with pictures, messages, and notes, with sturdy encryption that stops even Apple from seeing what you’ve in your units. The characteristic seems to be so highly effective that it has intelligence businesses elevating nationwide safety issues, which is an efficient factor for the privateness of your information. Google One backups are additionally secured, however these do not provide the identical degree of safety.
Stay actions in notifications and iCloud pictures libraries in iOS 16.1
Earlier than these two updates, iOS 16.1 supported shared iCloud photograph libraries, which you may also have on Android, because of Google Images. Google is the pioneer right here, as the choice to share particular pictures primarily based on guidelines like topics has existed for a very long time. Apple takes it a tad additional with extra guidelines surrounding begin dates, a stricter separation between libraries, and extra.
iOS 16.1 additionally introduced new “dwell actions” to notifications, which permits builders to indicate robotically updating information within the notifications on any iPhone’s lock display or throughout the iPhone 14 Professional’s Dynamic Island. Whereas Android telephones cannot compete with the Dynamic Island, dynamically updating notifications have existed on the platform for some time. Citymapper affords the most effective implementations of that on Android. There are additional tweaks in iOS 16.1, which you’ll be able to examine in Apple’s intensive changelog.
Clear Calling, Recorder enhancements, and extra within the Android 13 December Function Drop
On the Android facet of issues, we bought our fingers on Android 13’s first Function Drop, which launched in December 2022. The replace is especially for Pixel telephones, which obtained a number of new options that differentiate them from different Android telephones and the iPhone. Google launched a Clear Calling possibility for the Google Pixel 7 Professional and its smaller sibling, serving to you perceive the opposite facet higher in loud environments. The corporate added a unified Safety & Privateness middle in system settings that’s rolling out to Android telephones. It makes it simpler to handle all related choices in a single single place.
The Pixel-exclusive Recorder app turned extra highly effective with this replace. It now acknowledges particular person audio system and labels them as completely different individuals within the transcript with out the audio leaving your system for speech evaluation. In the meantime, the iPhone Voice Memos app nonetheless cannot make transcripts. Google is gearing as much as launch spatial audio, which is meant to compete with Apple’s characteristic underneath the identical title. With it activated, you may hear sounds relative to your telephone’s and head’s place in sure movies or music.
We took a deeper dive into what’s new in Android 13’s December Function Drop. Total, growth does not stand nonetheless on Android or iOS, and it is good to see the businesses persevering with to compete even after they launch their yearly updates.
Android 13 vs. iOS 16: Lock display and homescreen customization
Android 12 and, to a lesser extent, Android 13, stepped up the interface design sport with Materials You, the wallpaper-based theming engine that applies a becoming coloration palette to supported apps. Whereas Apple hasn’t made any elementary design modifications to its platform since iOS 7 in 2013 and has centered on iterative enhancements, the corporate has added some neat and surprising upgrades to iOS 16. Amongst them is a lock display that comes with widgets, fast change choices, and focus mode compatibility.
Apple’s iOS 16 lock display is leaps and bounds higher than Android 13’s. Whereas Android used to help lock display widgets (they had been eliminated with Android 5 Lollipop in 2014), Google appears to have misplaced curiosity within the idea as widgets had been being handled as an afterthought by app builders. Apple modified how builders take into consideration widgets when it launched them to iOS in 2020, and two years later, the corporate is including a number of them to the lock display.
To do that elegantly, Apple leverages the work builders made to create Apple Watch compilations. Apple’s lock display widgets aren’t actually widgets. The widgets are literally watch compilations. This strategy means that you can add numerous data to a comparatively small house beneath the clock.
Apple launched greater than widgets to the lock display. The corporate has made it doable for the clock to be hid by topics or objects within the wallpaper. This makes for an immersive, three-dimensional expertise. Mix that with the choice to vary your most well-liked font and the wallpaper, and lock screens have by no means been as private as they’re on iOS 16. Utilizing Apple’s Focus Mode, you may robotically have your iPhone shuffle by means of completely different lock screens and wallpapers. You possibly can set this up so that you simply solely get notifications from work apps whilst you’re at work and solely private apps if you’re residence or out and about.
All these flashy additions cannot conceal the truth that some individuals are not followers of Apple’s notification choices. It isn’t doable to maintain notifications at all times seen on the lock display, and making iOS notifications work to your liking might be difficult.
Apple can also’t evaluate with Android 12’s and Android 13’s Materials You theming. Whereas theming your lock display with customized fonts and widgets is enjoyable, it may get tedious if you wish to set it and overlook it. Google’s theming engine is nice for this. Materials You takes the heavy theming work from you by making use of colours primarily based in your wallpaper to app interfaces, making for a extremely customized expertise in lots of elements of the telephone, together with the lock display.
Android 13 vs. iOS 16: Per-app language choices
Android 13 is the primary launch on Google’s facet to introduce official help for per-app language choices. This makes it doable to make use of any app in your telephone in your most well-liked language, unbiased of your system language or the one set for different apps. The choice is an absolute boon for individuals who communicate multiple language, which is estimated to be round half of the world’s inhabitants.
Google provides you two intuitive methods to change an app to a different language. On Pixel telephones and plenty of others, you may long-press the app in your homescreen, then faucet the app information button (usually displayed as a small i in a circle) on the prime of the popup. Within the display that opens, scroll down till you see a Language menu possibility. Faucet it, after which choose no matter you like. That is the quickest strategy to modify languages on the fly.
You can too undergo a listing as soon as and set your apps to your most well-liked languages. Go to the system settings, search for System with the Languages & enter menu inside it, after which the App languages entry. You will notice a listing of supported apps and the languages you assigned to them. You possibly can then faucet one among them to vary your preferences.
As properly as Google thought out this technique, the corporate nonetheless threw in a roadblock. Even when an app helps a number of languages, builders should choose into per-app languages manually with a number of traces of code. You would possibly solely have a small number of supported apps for this characteristic in your telephone working Android 13.
You possibly can work round this with an ADB command found by Mishaal Rahman, which loses the opt-in requirement and makes particular person language switches doable for all apps. We have not run into any points with this setup on a Google Pixel 6 and luxuriate in many apps in both English or German.
Your mileage might fluctuate as this ADB command unlocks an experimental possibility. You would possibly expertise app crashes.
In the meantime, per-app language choices aren’t new to iOS 16. Apple has supported the characteristic since 2019’s iOS 13. The corporate has made the method simpler for its builders than Google has. If an app is localized into multiple language, the developer does not want so as to add additional code to their undertaking for the per-app language switching possibility to indicate up in system settings.
On iPhones, altering the language is barely extra sophisticated than on Android 13, and it’s worthwhile to know the place to search for the choice. You possibly can’t long-press the homescreen icon to go straight to the language settings. As an alternative, you may go to system settings and search for the app within the listing towards the tip. Faucet it to search out the choice to change the language. iOS does not have a listing that reveals which languages are assigned to which apps like on Android 13. That is one thing that Apple hasn’t modified for iOS 16.
Neither of those options is ideal. Nonetheless, Apple’s strategy is considerably higher, as builders do not must make modifications to help per-app languages.
Android 13 vs. iOS 16: Keyboard, dictation, and clipboard
Earlier than we dive into keyboard comparability, it deserves mentioning that pitting Apple and Google towards one another right here is not completely honest. The iOS keyboard is a part of the system within the Apple ecosystem, whereas Google’s Gboard is an app that may be up to date by way of the Play Retailer at any time. This permits Google to iterate on options quicker than Apple, because it does not must push out a system replace. Plus, Gboard is offered on nearly each Android system, not solely Google Pixel telephones.
We nonetheless see modifications coming to the Google and Apple keyboards as a part of system replace bulletins. For instance, Gboard obtained highly effective on-device dictation choices as a part of the Pixel 6 collection launch and Android 12. Apple tried to comply with swimsuit with iOS 16. The best way dictation works on each platforms is comparable, however there are some key variations. Punctuation is added robotically on each platforms, and it is doable to seamlessly change between voice enter and typing when it’s worthwhile to make corrections or wish to tweak what you stated. You can too dictate a number of widespread emojis on each platforms.
Apple’s iOS 16 dictation is a step ahead for the corporate and has change into extra dependable, however the Cupertino firm cannot meet up with Google in that regard. With Gboard on the Pixel 6 and 6 Professional, it is doable to make use of dictation to ship and clear messages and to undo your final little bit of dictation. That is achieved with voice instructions like “ship,” “clear,” “clear all,” or “cease.” You can too hold the microphone energetic indefinitely, permitting you to speak as you chat with somebody with out touching your telephone.
One other matter tangential to the keyboard is the clipboard, and Google is profitable with Android 13. Gboard has at all times saved the previous few objects you copied for later use, together with screenshots. Now, Android 13 has a clipboard editor within the system. A small popup seems within the lower-left nook if you copy a textual content or a picture. You possibly can both share your clipboard with apps or edit the contents of the clipboard. That is useful if you wish to share particular elements of one thing you copied, like a road in an handle. Common Clipboard on iOS makes it simple to repeat and paste between your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Final however not least, Apple added one thing to its iOS keyboard that is been on Android for what seems like perpetually. You possibly can allow haptic suggestions for each key press.
The media participant hasn’t seen big modifications on both platform with their respective upgrades, however some issues are price highlighting.
The Android 13 media participant is extra visually interesting than its predecessor. As an alternative of pulling colours out of your wallpaper like the remainder of the interface, the participant comes with the album artwork of the tune you are taking part in as a background. The participant’s play/pause button and different interface components pull their colours from the album cowl fairly than the system coloration theme. On prime of that, the progress bar squiggles if you play music, making it seen at a look that audio is presently taking part in. Whilst you might discover the design clashing together with your normal system theme at instances, it is an effective way to showcase music and different media.
Apple’s redesign is smaller, however the firm shuffled issues round. As an alternative of showing on the prime of the lock display when music is taking part in, the media notification seems on the backside, like different notifications on iOS 16. You possibly can faucet the album artwork to see a bigger model in the midst of your lock display, full with a background that pulls its colours from the album cowl. Like Android 13, iOS 16 offers slightly visualization when music is taking part in.
This new visible element solely shines when you take a look at the brand new iPhone 14 Professional and Professional Max. When music performs within the background, you may see the visualization and elements of the management interface on the prime of the display, rounding up the “Magic Island” interface that Apple constructed round its pill-shaped entrance digicam cutout.
Android 13 vs. iOS 16: Sensible drag-and-drop
Pretty much as good as Google is with picture recognition, because of the pioneering work it may obtain in Google Images, Apple is taking part in greater than catch-up in iOS 16. Apple’s new good drag-and-drop Visible Look Up software looks as if it is out of this world, and it’s one thing that we already wished to have on Android the second Apple launched it. The characteristic means that you can choose a random topic or object from any photograph in your display, faucet and maintain it, after which drag it into one other app as a standalone object.
From our testing, the characteristic works effectively. Apple’s algorithms are good at recognizing the place an object ends and the place the background begins, and the cutout areas are on level more often than not. Whereas guide modifying in Photoshop provides higher outcomes, the method on iOS 16 is as seamless as it may get. It is a shortcut to ship customized stickers to your family and friends, which you’d normally create in a tedious course of on WhatsApp or Telegram.
Apple additionally launched the choice to repeat dwell textual content in movies. This lets you maintain and choose textual content in paused video frames so that you could copy or share the textual content in it.
Whereas Google hasn’t launched options like these in Android 13, the corporate already affords related capabilities, a minimum of in the case of textual content. Once you enter the Recents overview, you may both faucet and maintain the textual content you wish to extract or faucet the Choose possibility within the lower-right nook. Whereas Google was first right here, its characteristic is not as dependable as Apple’s. It usually acknowledges Instagram pictures with textual content in them as pictures you may’t extract textual content from however fairly share as cropped screenshots. It additionally does not allow you to extract textual content from YouTube movies. DRM-protected apps like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video are unnoticed of the equation within the first place as you may’t see their movies’ contents from the Recents display (or fairly, you may’t make a screenshot of the content material, which is what must be executed for Google’s textual content recognition to work).
Android 13 vs. iOS 16: Digital Wellbeing and Focus
Apple introduced Focus Mode to iOS 15, and with iOS 16, the corporate is stepping issues up. The characteristic stops sure apps and other people from reaching you and your notification shade at sure instances of the day, so you may keep centered at work and chill out at evening, solely speaking to family and friends. Nevertheless, the boundaries aren’t clear for all apps. You would possibly use the identical Calendar and Mail app for private and enterprise functions, and solely a number of the net shopping in your telephone may be work-related. That is the place iOS 16’s Focus filters are available.
Focus filters help you set boundaries in particular person apps just like the calendar, mail, or browser apps. Then, you should utilize Focus Mode to cover elements of the apps out of your eyes, like your work tab group if you’re out and about or your small business appointments if you’re winding down at evening. Third-party apps may faucet into the filters with a brand new API. Apple revamped the setup course of for Focus Mode with the newest iOS launch, promising to make issues easier.
Apple’s answer feels advanced and convoluted if you first set it up. You’ll want to contemplate which apps you utilize for work, which apps you utilize in your free time, and which individuals are allowed to contact you underneath which circumstances. As highly effective and easy as Focus filters can get when you set them up, this characteristic feels geared towards energy customers, and you’ll anticipate it on Android fairly than on iOS.
On Android 13, Google hasn’t modified issues relating to its focus and winding down characteristic set, collected underneath the Digital Wellbeing umbrella. Google does not hassle with completely different focus modes for various events. It has one other strategy that is easier to know. The corporate affords a single Focus Mode accessible underneath Digital Wellbeing in system settings. It lets you choose distracting apps and switch them off primarily based on a schedule or manually. Throughout that point, you may’t entry blocked apps (until you permit your self a five-minute break). For every part else, you might be inspired to make use of Do Not Disturb, which silences notifications and calls apart from exceptions you arrange. This answer might not be as granular as Apple’s, however it’s much less overwhelming and never as sophisticated.
These two Android options have been comparatively unchanged since 2020.
Android 13 vs. iOS 16: Good concepts on each fronts
Android and iOS have change into nice working programs which might be totally on par with one another, despite the fact that every has its strengths and weaknesses. Android’s openness permits for extra customization and freedom, and Apple’s closed strategy makes it a safer possibility. Total, switching between platforms is generally seamless, besides some issues are simpler on iOS and others are simpler on Android. Nonetheless, there are some things you will not like about switching from Android to iOS.