iOS 7 vs. Android – A Quick Feature Comparison After the WWDC Keynote

There isn't a huge amount of features in this release that are taken from Andriod that I can see. There is certainly an inspiration in the look and perhaps some of the feel, but most of the similarities they raise here are just obvious extensions to existing features (sometimes from things they did actually borrow, like Notification Centre).

Command Centre is a pretty obvious implementation of something people have been asking for since pretty much the first iPhone release.

Lock screen notifications is again an obvious feature, requested since the notification centre was released.

The multitasking UI is a relatively obvious UI if you're going to show app shots. It's as similar to WP7 as any of the other features are to Android, but they don't seem to be aware of that.

iOS has had swipe gestures on list items since forever. The new style looks a bit like Mailbox because that's how a flatter Google/WP7 style is going to look. Mailbox isn't swipe gestures to reveal menu items, Mailbox is swipe gestures to move between inbox states. They're completely missing what makes the swipe gestures in Mailbox so good.

The swipe left bevel to screen gesture isn't about revealing a drawer, it's about navigating back. It's useful, it's not revolutionary, but I didn't think they played it up as such.

Sure, Apple is playing catch-up in some areas. They are inspired by Android, which certainly took ideas from the success of the iPhone (and both have been influenced by WebOS, Windows phone, etc etc). Not a story, really, it's simply good competitive pressure at work.

Apple certainly did copy a whole bunch of ideas from Android. But honestly, I think every single one of them looks much nicer on iOS 7.

I’m an Android user but these kind of articles are terrible. The tone is very us-vs-them and belittling, and it looks like the author didn’t even do proper research before writing.

Take the swipe to delete gesture. This has been in iOS since the very beginning. Or the snarky comment about slideout navigation drawers – I wonder if the author bothered to watch the presentation, because it’s still a plain old navigation controller with an updated animation. It’s not the Facebook drawer.

And don’t get me started on “stealing”. It’s clear there is a lot of inspiration here but that goes both ways.

My phone runs CP/M and already has all these features.

iOS is definitely playing catch up to the other OS's. Competition is good for everyone though :D