At its annual IO conference on Wednesday, Google unveiled a number of new products, features and services that will be introduced in the coming months. We got a look at the new Pixel tablet, watch and phone, the new budget Pixel 6a, the first public beta of Android 13 and exciting demand, AI and app updates.
But here at Macworld, we couldn’t help but notice how familiar many of the messages sounded. There were more than a few features revealed in the IO that seemingly were derived directly from Apple’s book. Here are 5 features that come with Google and Android devices that Apple users have enjoyed for years:
Google Wallet
One of the biggest announcements for IO apps was the conversion of Google Pay to Google Wallet. Of course, Google Wallet was something before the Apple Card, but this latest iteration takes more than a few signals from the iPhone app. The soon-to-be-launched new Google Wallet is your place for your digital life, storing digital IDs, boarding passes, concert tickets, vaccination cards, loyalty cards, car keys and, of course, credit cards. Experience has shown that Android users will love it.
Better tablet applications and multitasking
To put it mildly, Google tablets are not exactly in the same league as the iPad. With Android 13, Google wants to change that by stealing some of Apple’s great tablet experience. New features that come with Android tablets include easy multitasking that lets you use apps side by side and new interfaces “to take full advantage of the extra space, including YouTube Music, Google Maps, Messages, and more.” We’re not sure if this will put a lot of pressure on Apple’s dominance, but hey, better late than never.
Universal copying and pasting
Apple users have long had the ability to copy something to their iPhone and paste it on their Mac thanks to the power of Handoff and iCloud, and now Google is importing the same thing to Android phones and tablets. According to Google, “you will soon be able to copy a URL or photo from your phone and paste it on your tablet.” The system (seen below) looks a little more cumbersome than Apple’s completely seamless universal copying and pasting, but hey, that’s a start.
Pixel Buds Pro
Google also revealed annoying bundles of hardware messages during its IO keynote speech, including the new budget Pixel 6a, but the most intriguing was the Pixel Buds Pro. While no one would confuse the Pixel Buds Series A wireless headphones with AirPods, the Pixel Buds Pro has a set of very similar features to the AirPods Pro. You get noise reduction, transparency, surround audio and find mine, and an ear design that looks awfully similar to the rumors about AirPods Pro 2. Call them rivals if you have to, but we’ll just call them emulators.
Digital crown
Google stopped launching its first wearable device in Google IO, but finally confirmed the existence of the Pixel Watch. Like other watches with Android Wear OS, it has a round design with a fairly large frame and a new “tactile” crown, which seems to be Google’s version of the Apple Watch’s Digital Crown. We don’t know if it will be as smooth as Apple’s or if it will have a built-in ECG sensor, but the concept and appearance are practically identical.
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