Google’s Android platform has stolen so much from iOS over the years. In fact, Android was basically a terrible BlackBerry ripoff until Google saw the iPhone and realized it was moving in the wrong direction. Google pumped the brakes, redesigned Android to look and feel more like iOS, and the rest is history.
Of course, Apple has returned the favor and then some over the years, constantly taking features from Android and dumping them into each new iOS release. Of course, this shouldn’t be news to anyone — just as features in leading desktop operating systems have always overlapped throughout the years, the same is true of mobile operating systems.
As much as Apple has borrowed from Android over the years, however, there are still features in Google’s mobile platform that iPhone users wish Apple would steal. Can you guess which Android feature is at the top of the list?
A question posted on Reddit yesterday in the Apple subreddit posed a simple question: “If you could pick ONE feature from Android for future versions of iOS, what would you pick?” The gap between the top answer and other answers was fairly large, and this is hardly the first time the topic has been covered on Reddit and elsewhere. So what was the top answer? You guessed it: Notifications.
Some people made mention of other nifty Android features that could be cool on iPhones. Examples include the ability to switch default apps from Apple applications to third-party apps, and support for split-screen multitasking on the iPhone, not just the iPad. But the top answer was notifications. In fact, not one but seven of the top-voted comment threads in the post stated notifications as the Android feature Apple should swipe for iOS.
So many vocal iPhone users have hated Apple’s iOS notifications for so long, it’s borderline bizarre that Apple hasn’t updated the feature to address at least some of the many concerns. The way notifications are grouped (or are not grouped), the lack of notification snoozing, the odd swipe functions that seem to change with each new OS release, and the Notification Center itself that now looks like a lock screen are all points of contention among users.
Will Apple ever do anything to address all the complaints about iOS notifications? No one outside the company knows for sure, though it is encouraging that Apple is finally starting to address the volume pop-up that obscures the screen in iOS 11, moving it out of the way in some cases and allowing third-party apps to relocate it to the top of the display in other cases.
