Apple pinched 6 features from Android to iOS 16

Apple made a variety of announcements at its annual WWDC event this week, with iOS 16 being one of the more prominent releases. The latest version of the iPhone operating system features a number of nifty features for lock screen wallpapers, such as image segmentation, the ability to cut objects into images using machine learning, and real-time notifications on the lock screen.

However, there are some iOS 16 additions that may be familiar to Android users. We take a look at some of the features swiped from Android and Android OEM for Apple’s own mobile platform.

1. Live captions

Probably the most prominent iOS 16 feature from Android is that Apple announces live captions, real-time transcripts for conversations, audio and videos. This is similar to Google’s live caption functionality (debuted in 2019), which uses machine learning on the device to replicate any audio played on the device.

Explained: Here’s how live captions work on Android

Apple has also announced that iOS 16 supports live captions for FaceTime calls. For the price, Google’s solution already supports phone calls, video calls and audio messages in general. Either way, we’re glad to see that both platforms are now offering this convenient accessibility feature.

2. Lock screen widget

One of Apple’s big iOS 16 features is the addition of lock screen widgets, which lets you see information like weather, events, time zones and alarms from your locked display. You can even combine multiple lock screens with different focus profiles. It sounds pretty nifty, but it’s another feature that technically first came to Android.

In fact, with the advent of Android 4.2 in 2012, lock screen widgets debuted on Android. It really allows you to add a clock, calendar and other elements to the lock screen. Unfortunately, Android 5.0 has almost completely removed this feature. However, the preferences of Samsung’s One UI still offer a predefined selection of widgets, as seen above.

3. Shared photo library

Google Photos has long shared photo functionality, allowing you to share albums with loved ones and add their own photos to their collection. Google’s service allows you to add photos to an album by face, so you can automatically add all of your grandmother’s photos to an album if you wish. It even suggests contacts to share based on who’s in the photo

Guide: How to share photos in Google Photos

This is another idea that Apple has taken over from Google with iOS 16, albeit with a few changes of its own. iCloud’s shared photo library functionality now lets you share your photo and video library with up to five others. But it follows Google Photos by allowing these users to add their own content to the library. You can choose what to add to a library based on the people featured in start dates or snaps – great.

4. Translate the camera

Apple has embraced machine learning in a variety of ways, and iOS 16 also shows another clear use for technology. Apple’s devices can now access the Translate camera functionality in the first-party Translate app, which lets you point your camera toward text to get translations.

Android devices have this feature year after year through the Google Translate app, which lets you point your phone camera towards the text to get an overlaid translation in Live Viewfinder. Apple’s acceptance is a bit more limited, as it basically takes a photo and then overlays a translation on the text of the captured image.

5. Resizable App Windows

It’s not actually an iOS 16 feature but an iPad OS 16 feature. Still, the iPad’s new available app is a copy of the ability to run Windows that many Samsung tablets have offered over the years.

Read more: Everything you need to know about Samsung Dex

Samsung has long offered Windows, a resizable, overlapping app on its tablets, especially when using Dex mode on a tablet or via an external display. That said, this feature was hidden under Dex Labs settings for a while after its release, when some apps could not actually be resized.

6. Undo / schedule email sending

Apple has also announced the ability to reschedule email sending in its Mail app, along with the ability to schedule an email. The former is especially effective if you realize that you typed one or sent the mail to the wrong person.

Both features appeared in Gmail a while ago. In fact, it was undone First announcement 2009 as an experimental feature. Either way, these functions are available in Gmail for Android, PC and iOS.

Next up: Here are 9 things Apple has announced at WWDC that we want on Android

These aren’t the only iOS 16 features we’ve seen before on Google-powered devices. Features like pre-installed keyboard and haptic feedback for multi-stop navigation have been around for some time in Android and related Google apps. Are there any other iOS 16 features on Android or Google platforms? Let us know in the comments.