Since when is this new for Apple? The company (and don't get me wrong, I'm a fan) has an amazing ability to take older, already-existing technology and turn it into a successful product or feature. If you look at iOS for the past couple of versions, many of the things that people were excited about were features that Android already had. Whether you believe Apple has done them better or not is a matter of opinion.
Gruber has a pretty good summary of how this will likely go down. The HN thread is here: