Why trust GreenbotI love Android, but still dabble from time to time with iOS. Doing so usually makes me thankful at how Android works, with its deep integration, smart sharing features, Material Design flourishes in llipop.
But Android isn’t perfect, there are a few features in iOS that are better. So should do what any good tech company does: steal them. There has already been plenty of that on both sides of the mobile war; iOS clearly was inspired by Android with its notification shade, Android isn’t multitouch on accident. So here’s my list of some Apple-y ideas that should make their way to Android.
One touch to the top of the screen
Since the early days of iOS there has been this clever trick to get back to the top of the page: just touch the top of the screen you’ll zip right there. It’s great for browsing, social apps, or any other situation where you would rather not have to swipe endlessly, as you do on Android.
One touch gets you back to the top in Chrome, or any other app, when using iOS.
I’ve seen this type of functionality poke up in apps like Falcon o 3, where if you touch the top bar you’ll scroll to the most recent tweet. However, it needs to be a stard expected action across the whole operating system.
Display the battery percentage
Seriously, it’s ridiculous this still hasn’t happened. There’s a simple setting in iOS that lets you display the battery percentage at all times. Some manufacturers do this in their own skinned versions of Android, but it still isn’t there in the stard OS. This comes even after Android revamped the lock screen for llipop, eliminating widgets cleaning things up visually.
The Android llipop lock screen looks great, but it coud REAY use the battery percentage.
Yes, there are third-party apps like Battery dget Reborn that put a battery percent as a persistent notification. And there are even some Android watch faces that display it on your watch. In Android llipop, if you double-swipe down to show the quick settings, you’ll see the battery percentage, but who wants to do that all the time? The OS should have a stard option to always display the battery percentage.
Clone AirDrop
AirDrop is the simplest method for sending files back forth to people near you—only among Apple devices, of course. could really break some ground here if there was some kind of similar service it could deploy.
AirDrop makes it super simple to share a file to your computer or other iOS users.
One thought is connecting this to Drive—this would make it instantly cross-platform given that there’s desktop software for both OS X ndows. Yes, you can upload anything to Drive already, but it would be great if could go a few extra steps make it as quick simple as Apple’s solution.
Create a quick reply
Yes, some third-party texting apps create a popup window for you to respond to a message without diving back into the app, but it would be great if Android could have this type of quick reply natively. Especially since it makes two messaging apps: Hangouts Messenger.
The iOS 8 quick reply menu lets you respond to a text without opening the Messaging app.
On an ione it’s so much faster to reply to someone this way. Those nanoseconds can really save some time when you’re interrupted with a text want to respond quickly get back to what you were doing.
Add a drop of ‘Control Center’ to the Notification Shade
Apple may have straight up copied Android’s original notification shade, so it’s time to return the favor with the Control Center. In iOS, swipe up from the bottom to get access to volume controls, the flashlight, calculator, or to use AirDrop or Airay.
Control Center puts some useful comms one swipe away.
Some of those features are already in the llipop drop down menu, such as the ability to toggle -Fi Bluetooth. But there’s plenty of gray space there to fill up with more features, eliminating the need to keep a calculator icon on the home screen or set a timer.
e to start hoping for new features in Android ‘M’
previewed what would eventually become llipop several months in advance of its release at the I/O developer conference. rhaps it will do the same this time around we will hear about the next treat to grace Android. (muffin, marmalade, marzipan, M&Ms?)
If you’re listening , any of these would make Android an even slicker operating system. It’s still the best, but it takes continual improvement to stay there.
Is there an iOS feature you would like to see in Android? If so let us know about it in the comments.
