Most people consider Android to be the more feature-packed mobile operating system, but although this is true to an extent, Android still lacks some of the features that you find on iOS. In fact, some of these missing features have been an integral part of iOS for years.
If you are someone who is planning to switch from iPhone to Android device in the near future, you need to know the software functionalities that you will be missing. Here, we’ll take a look at the best iOS features that still aren’t in Android devices.
1. Airplay
AirPlay is one of the biggest features that is still missing from Android devices. Since AirPlay is a proper protocol developed by Apple, we don’t expect it to come to Android anytime soon.
Although a number of third-party apps on the Google Play Store let you wirelessly stream audio and video content from your smartphone, nothing comes close to this built-in solution. That’s why we wish Google would crack the code and bring basically the same functionality to Android devices.
Back in 2020, Google managed to bring AirDrop-like functionality called Nearby Share to Android 11 devices. So, we would not be surprised if the company is working on something like AirPlay for the Android platform.
2. Facetime
FaceTime is Apple’s video calling service that comes baked into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS devices. Thanks to its simplicity and intuitive functionality, FaceTime is extremely popular among Apple users.
On the bright side, Android users can finally join FaceTime calls from their devices thanks to iOS 15’s FaceTime on the Web functionality, but you still need a friend with an Apple device to actually initiate the call and share the link with you. will be required.
Android devices have access to a similar built-in video calling feature in the form of Google Duo, but it is not nearly as popular as most users rely on third-party apps for video calling. So, we wish Apple would bring the FaceTime app to Android devices at some point down the line.
3. iMessage
Apple’s iMessage service is one of the biggest reasons why most iPhone users hesitate to switch to an Android device. If your circle of friends is mostly Apple users, switching to an Android phone will mean feeling left out of iMessage groups.
Android users can get a taste of FaceTime via its web functionality, but unlike its video calling service, iMessage will probably never see the light of day on Android devices, as Apple knows it’ll take too many users out of its ecosystem. brings in
4. Live Text in Video
When Apple introduced Live Text with iOS 15, Android users were quick to point out that Google Lens had had this functionality for a long time and that Apple was late to the game. Well, in iOS 16, Apple took Live Text to the next level by bringing the same text detection functionality to videos. how cool is that?
You can pause any video in Safari or the Photos app to quickly copy the text content to your iOS clipboard. Live Text in Video can come in handy when you want to take notes from online lectures, tutorials, and more. That said, you will need an iPhone XS, iPhone XR or later to take advantage of this feature.
5. Pick up subjects from the background with Visual Lookup
Visual Lookup is yet another feature that works similar to Google Lens in the sense that you can use it to identify objects like landmarks, plants, animals, etc. and get more information about them. However, with the iOS 16 update, Apple integrated a machine learning feature into Visual Lookup, which lets you pick up an object from the background and paste it into another app.
All you need to do is long press on a recognizable object, and Visual Lookup will pick it up. You can get really creative with this feature and use it to create fun stickers and erase or remove backgrounds from any image on your iPhone.
Google Lens doesn’t offer a similar feature, and the closest thing you’ll find on an Android device is the Magic Eraser tool that Google introduced with the Pixel 6 lineup. Unfortunately, this tool does exactly the opposite—it removes unwanted objects from the background.
6. Drag and Drop
Drag and drop is a feature that iOS devices have had for a few years now, but with the recent iOS 15 software update, drag and drop now works system-wide. You can drag content from one app and drop it into another to replace the copy-and-paste action. It works better with Split View and Slide Over in iPadOS.
Apple has managed to perfect drag and drop over the years, but unfortunately, even the most recent Android 13 update doesn’t offer this functionality, which is quite a bummer.