March 7, 2021

13 killer features of iPhone, Android still cannot beat in 2021

By kushal

There are very few differences left worth demarcating iPhone and Androids both in terms of hardware as well as software. But till the time, these are not filled up, here are few noticable differences which still draw me towards iPhone.

Reachability

The iPhone screen dragging itself down halfway is a feature of iOS for the iPhone called “Reachability”. The idea of the feature is to help people be able to reach and tap items on the top half of the screen when using the iPhone with one hand. Double-tap the home button and the screen contents slide down halfway; double-tap the home button again and the contents slide back up.

Reachability Feature of iPhone

On an iPhone X/XS/XR/11/12, slide down at the bottom of the screen to activate reachability and bring the top half of the screen down.

This is an important feature android is missing. As more and more phone are becoming taller (an average of 6.5-6.7), using with one hand is becoming important. It is rumoured that Android version 12 might introduce it.

Keyboard as mouse cursor

Normally, if you’re writing a long text message, entering a URL in a browser or typing out text in an email, you’d have to double tap an area of text and hold down to move your cursor to an area of text that you might want to edit. You’re probably familiar with this tool, which brings up a tiny magnifying glass on the screen.

Mouse over Keyboard

Now there’s an easier way, and it allows you to move the cursor around a block of text like you would with a mouse. This is particularly useful since iPhones and iPads don’t have a mouse at all.

To use it:

  • Start writing text in any app, whether it’s Gmail, iMessage, Microsoft Word or anything else.
  • Hold down the keyboard on your iPhone or iPad.
  • The letters on your keyboard will vanish, and it’ll turn into one large mouse-pad like mechanism, which lets you move your cursor all around a block of text.

This is one of the cool feature which saves a lot of taps and gives a lot of control over what you are typing. It is not available over Android.

The Notification Centre

I must admit the notifications of android have always been rich, but when iPhone did it, it did it with a bang. The top right swipe gives you Control Centre, top left gives you notification panel and within notification panel, right swipe opens up the widget panel. This is very handy feature.

Notification panel

10 Killer features of iPhone which Android can’t beat right now.

  1. The beautiful Calendar and email App.
  2. The faster and better camera clicks
  3. The multi-screen opening
  4. The close integration of iMessages and SMS
  5. While using Audible, going 30 seconds ahead and behind is possible on lock screen. It is not there on Android
  6. The newly introduced MagSafe charger, keeps the iPhone on the bedside without falling.
  7. The beautiful widgets of iPhone are practical and useful.
  8. Worth to mention is its integration with Apple watch, iPAD and MAC devices. It does seem to flow together and actually all of them makes one device feeling.
  9. iCloud: After introduction of iCloud, keeping the directory simple and universal makes the Apple experience very powerful. There is no need of data transfer from one device to other. If you keep files on desktop (iCloud), it is available across all devices.
  10. The wifi sharing: This is yet another powerful feature which allows sharing of wifi with new apple devices without forcing one to enter or even remembering it.

Recently introduced Privacy control features on iPhone is again interesting feature.

If you think of anything more, kindly post.