Congratulations, Apple, you have just caught up with Pixel 3

We all have this friend who is still late. No matter the time you tell them or the number of reminders you give them, they cannot appear on time. And yet, you are always happy to see them cross the door. You knew they would eventually arrive, or at least you hoped. Well, this friend is Apple today, and the party in which he has finally arrived is basic call features. The year can be 2025, but I am happy to party as if it was 2018 – if only for a day.

I understand, Apple, it’s easy to watch Google. Its pixel conceptions are more fun than the iPhone, its expressive Material 3 update seems cleaner than liquid glass, and its overall AI experience is, better. I am also faster to recommend a pixel to someone looking for their next phone that I have never been with an iPhone. So, of course, it is logical that Apple finally pliers or two king’s appeal features. Only this time, I think I’m shocked that it took so long.

After all, some of Google’s best call features have been around since I was at university. He introduced a call screen on the Pixel 3 series and followed with me two years later on the Pixel 5. I was enchanting the first when my roommate returned from the Christmas break with a brand new pixel, and I lived the second for myself when I spent my Galaxy S10 Shatered before his time really came. Curiously, they quickly became so good and so useful that I almost forgot that they were there – I simply completed them as if they had always existed.

But now, with Apple ready to present its point of view on the two features within the framework of iOS 26, I wonder what has taken so long. Have we not rented smart call features from Google enough when they were new? To hear Apple to say, the screening of calls is based on the base established by live voicemail, which has only existed since iOS 17 at the end of 2023. Google, in comparison, has offered the transcription of voicemail since its launch of Google Voice in 2009 – it is quite the gap if you ask me. After all, Google did not say that its screening process was based on the departure of a voicemail, so I don’t know why Apple has the impression of being.

I suppose that the delay of Google Adding Hold for me to recovery of Apple recovery is not as considerable – six years instead of more than eight – but I am not sure that it is much better. I mean, Google understood what Gemini was something other than a constellation and that he has always shipped the flagship phones with a single rear camera, but Apple was too busy adding 5G support to the iPhone 12 series.

Again, I might not be so low on iOS 26. Do I like the look of liquid glass? No, is someone? However, by pinching a few longtime Android features, I have at least the impression that Apple shows a sign of life. He finally looks outside of his enclosed garden and at least finds green stains on the other side. Of course, these patches have been there for almost a decade, but as they say, better late than never.

In addition, it sometimes has the impression that a push of Apple is precisely what the tastes of Google and Samsung need to raise their own game. They have become a little too comfortable with the way in which a user interface and a pixel user interface have long been, allowing significant improvements to delay the new wrinkles of intelligent AI, so I hope that the Apple Raid of Apple makes people think about what people really need their phones. And now that Apple introduces personalized backgrounds to Imessage conversations, it only seems only a matter of time before seeing this on Android too.

If there is one thing that I hope to see the end as soon as possible, however, it is the tendency to simplify the camera interfaces, as we can see above. Google was the king of rationalized camera application for a very long time, completely ignoring manual controls with the excuse of “just confidence”, and now Apple does the same. He boiled everything in the two tabs that you see above, pushing everything else in the field of camera or menu control to the far right, and I don’t think I like it. I agreed to trust Google’s image processing, but Apple has not yet built the same reputation.

So, please, Apple, think twice before copying Pixel 3 too much. It was an excellent phone at the time, but times changed a little.