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New iOS features so far look like Android parity catchup. Finally, a way to remove apps from the home screen without uninstalling them, and an "all apps" view

New iOS features so far look like Android parity catchup. Finally, a way to remove apps from the home screen without uninstalling them, and an "all apps" view so you can still find them. And real home screen widgets. And picture in picture video. New Siri overlay design seems similar in function to the new Google Assistant overlay design. On device voice recognition for keyboard dictation, like GBoard on Pixel. Maps guides, bike directions, like Google Maps. App Clips, like Play Instant Apps. Incoming calls as notifications, like the Google Phone app.

duxup 6y ago
I always thought widgets were a huge deal and then I realized... and I played with them all the time but inevitably ... I used them less and less and less. My phone as a sort of dashboard just doesn't work, I suspect it would require too much customization to really create to work for me and probably anyone else. Usually I want to just open a specific app anyway.
- jdofaz 6y ago
  I find it really helpful having the calendar widget on my first homescreen
  - GloriousKoji 6y ago
    I need a calendar and todo list in my face. Notifications were okay but there's so many of them now it's mostly noise.
- ProZsolt 6y ago
  The only "widgets" I use are on my lock screen: time, weather, meetings. Everything else is just a distraction.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  Widgets can definitely be overused. But I like having a calendar, a data usage meter, music player controls, and quick access to my top couple of contacts.
- seanalltogether 6y ago
  My android phone home screen has contained a weather widget and a music player widget for the past 7 years. I love having both of those things instantly viewable and interactive.
- gondo 6y ago
  Widgets can be very useful if you set them up correctly. For example I am checking our KPIs daily with a single swipe. Shameless plug, I've recently made an app for this, to create custom widgets: https://www.wowidget.com/ https://www.wowidget.com/
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- kllrnohj 6y ago
  Widgets are the only way I can stand having smart home things. Whenever I want to control a light it's always right now and widgets give me that.
  - derefr 6y ago
    The ideal way for most "control something" widgets to work is the way the iOS "Apple TV Remote" app already works, when added as a Mission Control button. It's 1. a regular app; plus 2. a shortcut to get into that app that can be accessed with one swipe from the lock screen; plus 3. a lock-screen widget that displays if the phone fell asleep while the app was in the foreground; and finally, 4. a separate "lock-screen embedded pseudo-app" (sort of like the Camera one you get to by swiping left on the lock screen), which you get to if you tap the "Remote" Mission Control button without first unlocking the phone. This last view allows people to still use your locked phone to pause the Apple TV it's controlling, if you're not there to unlock it for them. It's too bad that no third-party app on iOS can achieve this same level of integration.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      I wouldn't see much point in your 3 and 4 for home automation stuff. Homekit does 1 and 2, and for the bulbs I use it with, that's plenty.
    - kllrnohj 6y ago
      I wouldn't say that's ideal because it's predicated on seeing & using the lockscreen, which is itself not ideal. Ideal is the device is instantly unlocked when I pick it up - which is also the reality I have as an Android user, but you can experience this on iOS as well with jailbreak mods. And with widgets it's then zero swipes to get to my lightbulb controls, which is just sweet.
    - fragmede 6y ago
      Ideally there would just be a button that could turn on the lights in the room (to the level I want). In olden times this button was mounted to the walls of said room, but in these modern times, it would be awesome if that button was a real button, on my phone, like the volume up/down buttons, and would just turn the lights on/off in the room the phone is in. That Apple's got this hacky solution thats suffciently functional shouldn't be taken as the end-state on what an ideal solution is.
- addicted44 6y ago
  I enjoyed widgets when I used Android. Being able to keep a few key contacts 1 tap away, the weather and calendar always visible, and being able to single tap to create a new todo, another single tap to open my groceries note, etc. was pretty cool. With the latest iphones being as fast as they are it's not a game changer to not have widgets, but I definitely found them extremely convenient.
randomsearch 6y ago
I have never heard anyone ask for a way to remove an app without uninstalling it. Seems like weird feature creep to me. Edge case, just stick the app in a folder...
- bbatha 6y ago
  I would love that. Extensions (ad blockers, keyboards, etc) in particular are super awkward because they install a full app. I also have a couple regional apps that I use every couple of months they really don't deserve home screen space even if its in a junk folder.
- moojd 6y ago
  Think start vs desktop for windows or dock vs finder for mac os
  - moogleii 6y ago
    You can already search for the app you want, though.
  - randomsearch 6y ago
    Ah ok. So the difference here is I do not think of my phone like I think about a computer. Suddenly a lot of Android makes sense - they’re trying to build a little computer that fits in your pocket! Aha! I see! I am not sure that’s a good model for designing something that is fundamentally not a little desktop computer.
    - wvenable 6y ago
      You mentioned "sticking an app in a folder" -- that's as much a computer metaphor as anything.
      - randomsearch 6y ago
        A folder is an office metaphor, surely.
1_player 6y ago
I haven't seen that part yet, but to me the iOS app list was a killer feature. I always hated Android's desktop, it feels redundant when there's already an app menu, and I can't stand the fact that newly installed apps decide to show up on the desktop. Never used widgets either, they have never made my daily workflow easier at all. YMMV
- efdee 6y ago
  How can you simultaneously state that you prefer an app list (where all apps are listed and thus added automatically) and complain about how apps are automatically added to the Android home screen (which I presume is what you're referring to as desktop)? And the thing you never used never made your daily workflow easier? That sounds... obvious? Try using it for a while and then decide if they're worth it.
  - derefr 6y ago
    > How can you simultaneously state that you prefer an app list (where all apps are listed and thus added automatically) and complain about how apps are automatically added to the Android home screen (which I presume is what you're referring to as desktop)? Presumably because, if your primary "default" view was already the app list, then it'd be redundant for the home screen to have apps on it. If the "home screen" was secondary, it'd become more of a "widget screen" (like the iOS "widget page", but with the ability to add shortcuts to documents/bookmarks as well.) Just like a PC desktop (which is secondary in function to the OS apps menu/launcher) is essentially a "widget page" + shortcuts to documents, bookmarks, and common locations.
    - ric2b 6y ago
      So don't use the app list? I'm confused about the problem.
- innocenat 6y ago
  The nice thing about Android is that you can totally customise the desktop. There are multiple luncher that make it act more like iOS.
jdofaz 6y ago
This is great, having every app, unsorted by default, on the homescreen/desktop was one of the most annoying things to me about iOS. I have a regular habit of running General->Reset->Reset Home Screen Layout to get an alphabetical list. Auto creating homescreen icons is one of the first things I turn off when first setting up an android device.
etblg 6y ago
Not only Android catchup, stuff like widgets were a feature on OSX a decade+ ago before they removed it.
jayd16 6y ago
Looks like they're adding instant apps as well.
- basch 6y ago
  And what id argue is even a better implementation. For times when you want to interact with an app, with some kind of an account, but dont want the app on your phone. No need to create an account, setup payments. Scan something, pay for it, move on.
  - mwarkentin 6y ago
    I’ve been getting annoyed lately, configured iOS to “offload” rarely used apps - but it means that I stop getting expected notifications.. and don’t realize it until I try to open the app.
    - servercobra 6y ago
      Yeah, with Covid, a ton of apps were offloaded for me, and once I started to safely venture out into the world again, a bunch of things were missing (Starbucks, Lyft/Uber, etc).
  - jhayward 6y ago
    Just wait until you see what the marketing people put in to those apps.
  - jayd16 6y ago
    That's how they work on Android isn't it? It's how it worked when I saw it demoed at IO one year, anyway.
    - basch 6y ago
      I dont believe android has anything quite like sign in with apple, that lets you make an account at a service with only your name, and provides you a one time use random email address as a forwarder to your real email.
ProZsolt 6y ago
No default apps, which is the biggest reason I use Android.
- fossuser 6y ago
  They've let you delete default apps for a while now (a couple of years I think?)
jamil7 6y ago
Default email and browser apps, finally...
- modeless 6y ago
  Missed that one, awesome! But with Apple still blocking competition in browser engines, browser "choice" is not nearly as meaningful as it should be.
  - notatoad 6y ago
    having a mobile browser that syncs your history and bookmarks over from your desktop browser of choice is arguably more important than having a choice in browser engines. as a developer i get it, i would like to choose a different browser engine too, but that's mostly for philosophical reasons, not actual utility.
    - dahfizz 6y ago
      > having a mobile browser that syncs your history and bookmarks over from your desktop browser of choice is arguably more important than having a choice in browser engines. This isn't an either/or scenario. Firefox and Chrome support this on Android. Apple blocking third party browsers has nothing to do with desktop sync.
    - SiVal 6y ago
      The importance of real browser choice on iOS is not just "philosophical". It's not about bookmarks. It's about control of the web itself. All major parts of the web now allow users to freely choose their browser with one glaring exception: iOS. Unfortunately, iOS is big enough that it has veto power over the entire web platform. If it won't work on iOS, it won't work on "the web". It's just like the old days of Internet Explorer or Java before it, where a proprietary platform maker had the precious ability to sabotage its open platform competition.
      - kalleboo 6y ago
        Without iOS enforcing Safari, Google will own the web. Safari being a requirement adds "test in other browsers" to the requirements list of any web app. If you can just tell iOS users to install Chrome, that development step goes away, and the incremental work to support for Firefox will also go away. And then we will have the real Internet Explorer web again, where it is owned by one company.
m3kw9 6y ago
Is not a feature check off, it’s the way it’s implemented and used. Remember copy and paste?
noir_lord 6y ago
Apple don't 'catch up', they 'invent', 'craft' and 'hone'. They let others prove a market and then they move in and throw vast resources at doing a better version, honestly it's a smart move if you have the cash. I find it some what ironic though given how friendly they pretend to be to developers.
seganddr 6y ago
Picture in picture is nice but I am disappointed that there's no split screen for all models yet.
- dajohnson89 6y ago
  same here. for which models is split screen possible?
  - RandallBrown 6y ago
    iPads
  - seganddr 6y ago
    11 pro max is the only iPhone model that has it
throwanem 6y ago
It's not news that iOS trails Android in feature adoption. And as an iOS user, I appreciate all the unpaid beta testing Android users do on my behalf.
nmstoker 6y ago
Yes, very much this time. There's always a great cycle where they cherry pick the best from each other and Android adopted a bunch of things recently like gesture navigation but it's definitely seeming like it's a major catch up from Apple this time with things like on device voice dictation and the general layout / widgets. Less so for the simpler items but for various of these cutting edge items it's been a shame they've been so narrowly deployed on Android where they've mostly been for Pixel only.

duxup 6y ago

I always thought widgets were a huge deal and then I realized... and I played with them all the time but inevitably ... I used them less and less and less. My phone as a sort of dashboard just doesn't work, I suspect it would require too much customization to really create to work for me and probably anyone else. Usually I want to just open a specific app anyway.

jdofaz 6y ago
I find it really helpful having the calendar widget on my first homescreen
- GloriousKoji 6y ago
  I need a calendar and todo list in my face. Notifications were okay but there's so many of them now it's mostly noise.
ProZsolt 6y ago
The only "widgets" I use are on my lock screen: time, weather, meetings. Everything else is just a distraction.
JoshTriplett 6y ago
Widgets can definitely be overused. But I like having a calendar, a data usage meter, music player controls, and quick access to my top couple of contacts.
seanalltogether 6y ago
My android phone home screen has contained a weather widget and a music player widget for the past 7 years. I love having both of those things instantly viewable and interactive.
gondo 6y ago
Widgets can be very useful if you set them up correctly. For example I am checking our KPIs daily with a single swipe. Shameless plug, I've recently made an app for this, to create custom widgets: https://www.wowidget.com/ https://www.wowidget.com/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
kllrnohj 6y ago
Widgets are the only way I can stand having smart home things. Whenever I want to control a light it's always right now and widgets give me that.
- derefr 6y ago
  The ideal way for most "control something" widgets to work is the way the iOS "Apple TV Remote" app already works, when added as a Mission Control button. It's 1. a regular app; plus 2. a shortcut to get into that app that can be accessed with one swipe from the lock screen; plus 3. a lock-screen widget that displays if the phone fell asleep while the app was in the foreground; and finally, 4. a separate "lock-screen embedded pseudo-app" (sort of like the Camera one you get to by swiping left on the lock screen), which you get to if you tap the "Remote" Mission Control button without first unlocking the phone. This last view allows people to still use your locked phone to pause the Apple TV it's controlling, if you're not there to unlock it for them. It's too bad that no third-party app on iOS can achieve this same level of integration.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    I wouldn't see much point in your 3 and 4 for home automation stuff. Homekit does 1 and 2, and for the bulbs I use it with, that's plenty.
  - kllrnohj 6y ago
    I wouldn't say that's ideal because it's predicated on seeing & using the lockscreen, which is itself not ideal. Ideal is the device is instantly unlocked when I pick it up - which is also the reality I have as an Android user, but you can experience this on iOS as well with jailbreak mods. And with widgets it's then zero swipes to get to my lightbulb controls, which is just sweet.
  - fragmede 6y ago
    Ideally there would just be a button that could turn on the lights in the room (to the level I want). In olden times this button was mounted to the walls of said room, but in these modern times, it would be awesome if that button was a real button, on my phone, like the volume up/down buttons, and would just turn the lights on/off in the room the phone is in. That Apple's got this hacky solution thats suffciently functional shouldn't be taken as the end-state on what an ideal solution is.
addicted44 6y ago
I enjoyed widgets when I used Android. Being able to keep a few key contacts 1 tap away, the weather and calendar always visible, and being able to single tap to create a new todo, another single tap to open my groceries note, etc. was pretty cool. With the latest iphones being as fast as they are it's not a game changer to not have widgets, but I definitely found them extremely convenient.

randomsearch 6y ago

I have never heard anyone ask for a way to remove an app without uninstalling it. Seems like weird feature creep to me. Edge case, just stick the app in a folder...

bbatha 6y ago
I would love that. Extensions (ad blockers, keyboards, etc) in particular are super awkward because they install a full app. I also have a couple regional apps that I use every couple of months they really don't deserve home screen space even if its in a junk folder.
moojd 6y ago
Think start vs desktop for windows or dock vs finder for mac os
- moogleii 6y ago
  You can already search for the app you want, though.
- randomsearch 6y ago
  Ah ok. So the difference here is I do not think of my phone like I think about a computer. Suddenly a lot of Android makes sense - they’re trying to build a little computer that fits in your pocket! Aha! I see! I am not sure that’s a good model for designing something that is fundamentally not a little desktop computer.
  - wvenable 6y ago
    You mentioned "sticking an app in a folder" -- that's as much a computer metaphor as anything.
    - randomsearch 6y ago
      A folder is an office metaphor, surely.

1_player 6y ago

I haven't seen that part yet, but to me the iOS app list was a killer feature. I always hated Android's desktop, it feels redundant when there's already an app menu, and I can't stand the fact that newly installed apps decide to show up on the desktop. Never used widgets either, they have never made my daily workflow easier at all. YMMV

efdee 6y ago
How can you simultaneously state that you prefer an app list (where all apps are listed and thus added automatically) and complain about how apps are automatically added to the Android home screen (which I presume is what you're referring to as desktop)? And the thing you never used never made your daily workflow easier? That sounds... obvious? Try using it for a while and then decide if they're worth it.
- derefr 6y ago
  > How can you simultaneously state that you prefer an app list (where all apps are listed and thus added automatically) and complain about how apps are automatically added to the Android home screen (which I presume is what you're referring to as desktop)? Presumably because, if your primary "default" view was already the app list, then it'd be redundant for the home screen to have apps on it. If the "home screen" was secondary, it'd become more of a "widget screen" (like the iOS "widget page", but with the ability to add shortcuts to documents/bookmarks as well.) Just like a PC desktop (which is secondary in function to the OS apps menu/launcher) is essentially a "widget page" + shortcuts to documents, bookmarks, and common locations.
  - ric2b 6y ago
    So don't use the app list? I'm confused about the problem.
innocenat 6y ago
The nice thing about Android is that you can totally customise the desktop. There are multiple luncher that make it act more like iOS.

jdofaz 6y ago

This is great, having every app, unsorted by default, on the homescreen/desktop was one of the most annoying things to me about iOS. I have a regular habit of running General->Reset->Reset Home Screen Layout to get an alphabetical list. Auto creating homescreen icons is one of the first things I turn off when first setting up an android device.

etblg 6y ago

Not only Android catchup, stuff like widgets were a feature on OSX a decade+ ago before they removed it.

jayd16 6y ago

Looks like they're adding instant apps as well.

basch 6y ago
And what id argue is even a better implementation. For times when you want to interact with an app, with some kind of an account, but dont want the app on your phone. No need to create an account, setup payments. Scan something, pay for it, move on.
- mwarkentin 6y ago
  I’ve been getting annoyed lately, configured iOS to “offload” rarely used apps - but it means that I stop getting expected notifications.. and don’t realize it until I try to open the app.
  - servercobra 6y ago
    Yeah, with Covid, a ton of apps were offloaded for me, and once I started to safely venture out into the world again, a bunch of things were missing (Starbucks, Lyft/Uber, etc).
- jhayward 6y ago
  Just wait until you see what the marketing people put in to those apps.
- jayd16 6y ago
  That's how they work on Android isn't it? It's how it worked when I saw it demoed at IO one year, anyway.
  - basch 6y ago
    I dont believe android has anything quite like sign in with apple, that lets you make an account at a service with only your name, and provides you a one time use random email address as a forwarder to your real email.

ProZsolt 6y ago

No default apps, which is the biggest reason I use Android.

fossuser 6y ago
They've let you delete default apps for a while now (a couple of years I think?)

jamil7 6y ago

Default email and browser apps, finally...

modeless 6y ago
Missed that one, awesome! But with Apple still blocking competition in browser engines, browser "choice" is not nearly as meaningful as it should be.
- notatoad 6y ago
  having a mobile browser that syncs your history and bookmarks over from your desktop browser of choice is arguably more important than having a choice in browser engines. as a developer i get it, i would like to choose a different browser engine too, but that's mostly for philosophical reasons, not actual utility.
  - dahfizz 6y ago
    > having a mobile browser that syncs your history and bookmarks over from your desktop browser of choice is arguably more important than having a choice in browser engines. This isn't an either/or scenario. Firefox and Chrome support this on Android. Apple blocking third party browsers has nothing to do with desktop sync.
  - SiVal 6y ago
    The importance of real browser choice on iOS is not just "philosophical". It's not about bookmarks. It's about control of the web itself. All major parts of the web now allow users to freely choose their browser with one glaring exception: iOS. Unfortunately, iOS is big enough that it has veto power over the entire web platform. If it won't work on iOS, it won't work on "the web". It's just like the old days of Internet Explorer or Java before it, where a proprietary platform maker had the precious ability to sabotage its open platform competition.
    - kalleboo 6y ago
      Without iOS enforcing Safari, Google will own the web. Safari being a requirement adds "test in other browsers" to the requirements list of any web app. If you can just tell iOS users to install Chrome, that development step goes away, and the incremental work to support for Firefox will also go away. And then we will have the real Internet Explorer web again, where it is owned by one company.

m3kw9 6y ago

Is not a feature check off, it’s the way it’s implemented and used. Remember copy and paste?

noir_lord 6y ago

Apple don't 'catch up', they 'invent', 'craft' and 'hone'. They let others prove a market and then they move in and throw vast resources at doing a better version, honestly it's a smart move if you have the cash. I find it some what ironic though given how friendly they pretend to be to developers.

seganddr 6y ago

Picture in picture is nice but I am disappointed that there's no split screen for all models yet.

dajohnson89 6y ago
same here. for which models is split screen possible?
- RandallBrown 6y ago
  iPads
- seganddr 6y ago
  11 pro max is the only iPhone model that has it

throwanem 6y ago

It's not news that iOS trails Android in feature adoption. And as an iOS user, I appreciate all the unpaid beta testing Android users do on my behalf.

nmstoker 6y ago

Yes, very much this time. There's always a great cycle where they cherry pick the best from each other and Android adopted a bunch of things recently like gesture navigation but it's definitely seeming like it's a major catch up from Apple this time with things like on device voice dictation and the general layout / widgets. Less so for the simpler items but for various of these cutting edge items it's been a shame they've been so narrowly deployed on Android where they've mostly been for Pixel only.