iOS 10 vs. Android Nougat: UI and notifications
While it’s fair to say that iOS and Android have been moving towards missile ground as far as a design aesthetic goes, both iOS 10 and Android Nougat sees them taking slightly different approaches to achieve the same design aesthetics as the other. For starts with Android Nougat, notifications have now been redesigned. They are much easier to read, have minimalistic borders, occupy the width of the screen, have smaller fonts, and can be tacked together based on app. In other words, they resemble iOS notifications more.
But iOS 10 is taking cues from the Android design department as well. It’s no bringing widgets to the home screen, although implementing them differently. Thanks to 3D Touch, now when pressing on an app’s icon a widget will appear—such as the current temp for the weather widget. This allows iOS 10 to gain home screen widgets, while also lets it keep them out of sight most of the time.
iOS 10 vs. Android Nougat: deleting stock apps
Both iOS 10 and Android Nougat allows you to now delete some stock apps. “Delete” is a little misleading, because you are actually just hiding the apps, not truly removing them from your device. And both iOS 10 and Android Nougat doesn’t allow you to hide all the stock apps—just some, those that Apple and Android’s handset manufacturers allow you to.
iOS 10 vs. Android Nougat: photo app
In iOS 10 the Photos app got a major improvement. It now uses machine learning to identify people, places, and objects inside your pictures and allows you to sort and search photos by those parameters. For example, Photos now knows which of your pictures have water in them. Search “lake” or “ocean” and it will return pictures of lakes and oceans. The app also now creates automatic slideshows and videos of your best pictures. If all this sounds familiar it's because it's what Google’s Photo app has been doing for almost a year. As you can see, now the Photos apps on both Android and iOS are tied feature-for-feature.
iOS 10 vs. Android Nougat: music app
Apple’s new Music app in iOS 10 has gotten a HUGE makeover. It’s now got a more simplified, easier to navigate interface. This is primarily so more people will give its Apple Music streaming service a try. But the music app on on Android, called Play Music, is still better. Why? Because Play Music is built around both streaming and individually downloaded songs, meaning it really cares about music fans no matter how they like to get their tunes.
iOS 10 vs. Android Nougat: updates
Though not really a feature, it’s worth noting that Android seems to get more updates pushed to it faster, than iOS does. This has been true for a while now since Android has been untethered for longer from its stock apps than iOS has been. Most stock apps have long been available on the Google Play store meaning Google could concentrate on just releasing updates for the main OS, instead of having to update every default app at the same time. It’ll be interesting to see if updates to iOS 10 speed up now that you can delete/hide stock apps from the OS.
iOS 10 vs. Android Nougat: personal assistants
Perhaps the biggest feature in iOS 10 is Siri is massively improved. Not only is the personal assistant getting improved features, it’s now being opened up to third-party developers so they can link into Siri—making her usefulness grow exponentially. Siri’s big competitor on Android is Google Now. for years Now has been better at Siri thanks to Google's algorithms. But with iOS 10 it’s possible Siri could overtake Now as the best personal assistant out there yet.
iOS 10 vs. Android Nougat: verdict
It’s never an easy call when comparing to mobile operating systems. Who wins this time? It’s safe to say that iOS 10 has more big features and improvements than Android Nougat. However, taken as a whole, both operating systems are closer in features to each other than ever before.
Apple has a few key areas where it needs to catch up to Android, with the most obvious being Siri. Compared to Google Now, Siri feels practically remedial and this is why Apple opened up Siri to developers. It should have happened a lot sooner, though. Like, two years ago sooner, as it would have evolved Siri in a significant manner, adding in new features and abilities all the time.
Siri will also likely feature heavily in Apple’s push towards more automated home appliances and, of course, its car. AI well be the next big thing to hit the tech world and once it lands in earnest, the net results in years to come will be enormous. Google Home and Apple’s HomeKit are just the start.
Either way, both platforms will be great additions to the space.
Ios 10 vs. Android Nougat: Messaging
Apple is massively enhancing iMessage in iOS 10, and it clearly has those aforementioned rivals in mind with its tweaks. You’ll be able to plaster your message threads with icons and animations, emoji will play a bigger role (quite literally), and you’ll even be able to add handwritten messages.
More interestingly, iMessage will have the scope to implement its own type of third-party apps into it. This will enable you to readily share a wide range of content with your contacts without having to open specific apps or even a generic iOS sharing menu, as well as doing more advanced things like ordering food and making person-to-person payments – all within the Messages app.
Google’s approach to messaging in Nougat is less showy, but potentially even more game-changing. The company is launching a whole new standalone messaging app called Allo, which will incorporate its considerable search and machine learning technology.
You may well have glazed over at that description, but it could mean a massive step forward for messaging. It means that you’ll be able to conduct Google searches, make restaurant bookings and much more from within Allo itself. The app will also learn over time and suggest replies based on the words and photos that have been sent to you.
There’s also an ephemeral message option for that discrete Snapchat vibe, plus, you get the ability to increase the size of emoji and scrawl over photos before sharing.
Both iOS 10 and Android Nougat promise interesting and overlapping additions to their messaging offerings – but we’re perhaps more excited by Google’s slightly more ambitious approach.