We can easily admit that Android has been way ahead of iOS in terms of customization options. Well, not anymore, it seems. With iOS 18 having officially landed, I’m taken aback by the number of things it does right on that front. So and so, I’d really want Android to steal a couple of pages from the iOS 18 handbook. Besides, since I have installed the latest iOS 18 Beta, I have an idea of how these features work. I have handpicked them, so let’s take a look!
1. The Classy Icon Tinting
With iOS 18, you get the ability to extend the Light and Dark modes of your UI to the app icons and widgets. In addition, there’s a new tinted slider as well now. Using this slider, you can tint the app icons and widgets any color you want.
From a classy neon to an upbeat yellow, this is a better Material You-like implementation than the actual thing on Android. The best part? If you don’t want to spend your time deciding which tint will go well across your home screen, you can also use a dedicated color picker to choose a tint from your wallpaper.
It instantly brings a lot of class and charisma to your home screen, and that’s something Android should definitely take some inspiration from.
2. A More Customizable Control Center
Android easily has had a more customizable control center (at least till now), letting its users rearrange the icons as they want. However, one thing iOS 18 introduced that I didn’t even know I needed was the ability to resize Control Center controls or toggles. As it sounds, it literally lets you resize the Control Center toggles and personalize it to your taste and convenience.
Not to mention that you also get a swipeable Control Center now in iOS 18, so you can create as many pages of controls as you want to make it all the more useful. It’s surprising how Apple went from no customization to all the customization you need in the Control Center, giving it quite the leverage over its Android counterpart. If you’re seeing this, I’d definitely like to resize my controls, Google.
3. Limited Contact Access for the Win
iOS had limited media access long before Google brought the functionality with Android 14. What it does is it lets you give apps access to specific photos and videos. This comes in very handy, particularly if an app you have downloaded is exhibiting shady behavior and wants access to your gallery for no reason whatsoever. This very feature has now been extended to contacts as well with iOS 18.
So, now, you can give apps access to only specific contacts on your device. I tried it with WhatsApp, and once I gave it access to only a single contact, the app could only read that specific contact and none of the rest.
We saw Android 15 bring a number of privacy and security-first features like anti-theft, private space, and more at the Google I/O this year. While these are essential features, the iOS 18’s limited contact access is a quality-of-life functionality that Android should steal.
4. Nerdy Cool Math Notes
Everyone literally went bonkers when Apple announced that iPadOS 18 is finally getting an in-built calculator app. But, what made me give it a big cheer is the amount of thought Apple put into it by integrating Math Notes into the Calculator and Notes app. So, essentially, you can simply scribble out an equation using Math Notes, and it will solve it for you.
The feature can solve advanced equations and even recognize diagrams to give you a final answer. However, during my testing, I found it to be a bit buggy. Neither could it solve simple equations like (a+b)2, to my surprise. But, yes, I’m guessing it’s the first beta as of now. Hopefully, Apple is on top of it and will get the feature to work like it’s supposed to.
Because, something like this will come in super handy for students, especially. Moreover, if Apple has found a way to make something like the calculator interesting, Android should totally step up and bring some additional utility to its calculator app too.
5. Notifications-Made-Smarter
While Apple Intelligence features are going to arrive somewhere around the September-October period to iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, there’s some ridiculously impressive stuff at play here. Using on-device artificial inte…oh sorry, Apple Intelligence, you get to see Priority Notifications. With this, it will give priority to texts or emails from those close to you, like your parents and best friend.
There’s also a new Reduce Interruptions Focus mode that will zone out everything else and focus on the important notifications at hand. For example, let’s say that you are getting something delivered today itself. It will focus on that and put it at the top of your notifications.
Apple has been ahead in this regard, bringing users scheduled notifications long before Android brought bundled notifications. Now, you will also get to see summarized notifications based on personal context, right in the lock screen.
So, let’s say that you’re in a WhatsApp group and two of your friends are talking about watching a movie on a particular date. Summarized notifications will boil it down to something along these lines – “Rick and Morty decided to watch a movie on June 15”.
All these new notification-centric features will finally let iOS users filter through the clutter that iOS users have always complained about.
6. Siri’s Impressive New Super-AI-powers
When the Google Gemini assistant was rolled out to Android devices a couple of months ago, our high hopes came crashing down, rolling back to the regular Google Assistant soon after. The new Siri finally looks like something I’d actively use in my daily life.
Working much like Microsoft’s newly announced Recall feature for Windows, the new Siri is on-device and uses GPT-4o to get users what they’re looking for. So, you can simply ask Siri to fetch a text from a couple of weeks ago, that listed your plans for the day. Let’s say you had to meet someone at a specific place. Using Siri, not only can you see the booking details of the place or the time you’re supposed to meet, but also how to get to that place using Maps.
That’s not the end of it though. Let’s say that this plan of yours is coinciding with another, then Siri will also let you in on that and how it impacts your routine for the day. If it all works as Apple has showcased, Google is in some serious trouble.
In comparison, Google’s Gemini and Google Assistant fall seriously flat, and something needs to be done about it. With iOS 18, a smartphone assistant has never seemed more viable and user-friendly.
All things considered, I never thought I’d get to the point where I’d say that Apple is finally starting to surpass Android in terms of customization options and UI design. I have been an Android fanboy for ages now, but shifting to iOS finally doesn’t seem like an impossible task.
While these are my thoughts, what do you think about the new iOS 18 features? Also, do let me know in the comments down below what other features you think Android should borrow from iOS.
Sagnik Das Gupta
