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In case you missed it, Apple announced a lot of new iPhone features at WWDC, although many of them are things Android phones can already do.

Innovation is innovation, and that includes bringing to the fore features that already exist in other devices. Many users like to accuse Apple of falling behind in certain aspects and then copying Android, even though a lot of what was released seems like a natural progression. A lot of it is also user demand for features that others have on different devices.

This is especially true for AI as models improve their semantic understanding, positioning them as fantastic photo editing tools or image generation assets in SMS/RCS messaging applications. We’ll break down a few new iPhone features in iOS 18 that we’ve seen on Android phones for a while.

Customizable home screens

This is probably the biggest and most overwhelming topic on social media. At WWDC 2024, Apple announced that a big part of iOS 18 will be the ability to customize the iOS home screen to a level Apple users haven’t seen.

Apps can now be placed anywhere on the screen, even if that means standing completely alone in a corner. The static app grid is gone and app icon movement is no longer constrained. This update also brings custom color palettes that turn app icons into different shades.

On stock Android users know this as Material You. Material You is a feature that allows apps to change colors based on the background wallpaper color. You can also change the colors to a specific one if you like through the home screen customization tools. In the latest versions of Android, this addition is reflected in almost every single Android OEM.

Interestingly, Apple’s approach to the custom app icon feature on the iPhone is a bit different than what Android has done. Instead of requiring developers to create app icon variations in different colors, iOS 18 seems to shade every icon, which can lead to some flat and lifeless apps.

RCS and message scheduling

RCS on iPhone is a huge win for Android users in general. It allows both parties to exchange messages that present more data than a simple SMS message. For example, RCS messages will allow users to see delivery and read receipts, theoretical input indicators and much richer visuals.

Google’s Messages app introduced RCS messaging to users a few years ago and has since taken a pretty strong approach to getting Apple to do the same. It took a while, but iOS can now receive and send RCS messages.

Another feature that Android fans may be used to is scheduled messages. With most Android OEMs like Samsung and Google, users have had the ability to schedule messages to be sent at a later date. It’s definitely a feature that comes in handy more often than not. In Google Messages, simple press and hold the send button to view the graph window.

Now, iPhone users can also schedule messages to be sent at specific times, just like Android with the Google Messages feature.

Smart photo app

Android has long had the Google Photos app in its arsenal. With updates and changes over the years, the app allows users to find images in the search bar even if they are searching through small details. This is one of the strongest reasons for users to use the Google Photos app instead of the standard app that comes on their devices. This has changed recently as many other manufacturers have refined their photo gallery apps to do the same.

Apple has now added an improved search system to the Photos app that lets users search for details in photos, including numbers, locations and other identifiers. The company also announced an editing feature for iPhone that looks a lot like Android’s Magic Editor or Galaxy AI. Bypassing people in the background will result in bystanders being deleted, which is a huge selling point for Magic Editor on Android.

Built-in AI

Another big adjustment during WWDC is how Apple looks at AI on the iPhone and in its other device ecosystem. The change means tons of apps will start using AI features to improve typing, how notifications are handled, and how other features are presented.

It’s hard to compare what Apple did in this update to what Google did with Gemini. At the phone level, the Gemini looks a bit lackluster, and what Apple seems to be advertising is seen throughout the iPhone. It would be nice to see Google implement some of the same quality-of-life features like notification summaries.

Custom emoticons

In this category, Apple wins hands down. The closest thing Android has to custom emojis is what’s available in the Emoji Kitchen or what’s possible with the custom stickers in Messages. The Apple version lets you generate custom AI emoticons in the style of Apple’s existing emoticon library.

The emoji kitchen is very different in the sense that Google has created a lot of emoji combinations by hand, so if you’ve chosen two existing emojis to combine, there will be a cool but annoying option.

Honestly, it’s nice to see Apple starting to introduce its own version of certain Android features. This means that the competition between platforms and OEMs is only going to increase, making every phone experience that little bit better.