The launch of iOS 18 last year saw Apple’s iPhone software evolving to an Android-Adjacet package. The redesigned home screen, the remained control center and the general emphasis on personalization have all brought the user experience closer to the iPhone from that of the best Android phones.
A year later, we are about to see Apple IOS 19 at WWDC 2025, although the company can jump and call it iOS 26. We know that it should offer a major design of the new platform, and that Apple’s intelligence has been still delayed, but what else could we see?
I have used most of the best phones in the past 18 years, and although iOS do many things, there are some features that it lacks compared to Android phones. Here are five Android features that I hope that Apple shameless copy.
1. Private spaces
Confidentiality is a key element in Apple positioning, and a new feature in iOS 18 was the possibility of locking certain applications on your iPhone. This allows you to hide the applications and lock access behind Face ID or your password, but the manufacturers of Android phones have considerably pushed this concept.
Although the concept has existed in one form or another for years, the private space function has been introduced in Android 15 to provide consistency on different Android devices. Essentially, it can be used to move applications and files to a private space protected by the chosen safety method. An example is the secure file function on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Imagine that your child won your phone and access an application to which you do not want to access or need to hide financial applications or messaging applications to a partner, or want to hide certain information during the trip. Private space guarantees that your data remains yours and that Apple should double confidentiality in iOS 19.
2. Appropriate multitasking
According to rumors, Apple would launch an iPhone folding next year, but to achieve this, it must offer a multitasking on the iPhone. IOS currently lacks multitasking form, and although the best iPad have multitasking features like Slide Over, phones like the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and OnePlus Open have multitasking capacities of the desktop type.
Samsung has perfected multitasking on the best Samsung phones in the 13 years that followed the launch of the Galaxy Note 2. each Samsung phone offers a series of multitasking features, and until OnePlus launches its foldable competitor, Samsung had the best multitasking of any smartphone.
Samsung’s multi-window approach has been ideally adapted to the folding form factor, but OnePlus showed us that there is an alternative approach that could be better. Open Canvas was launched alongside the OnePlus Open, and it solves a key problem with smartphones – the absence of usable screen real estate – emotulating several real multitasking screens.
3. AI features like Circle To Search
If you recently used an Android phone, you will know that Google Gemini has brought many AI features to all Android phones. Almost all telephone manufacturers have a certain form of AI implementation, and most unique features are powered in a form by Google Cloud.
This approach to work with each partner is the most obvious with Samsung. After a story of ambivalence towards collaboration, Samsung and Google have become close allies, and the best Samsung phones are now regularly used to introduce new Google AI features. The best of them? Cut to search, which allows you to search for anything on your screen, or to learn which song plays in the background.
The other features of the AI that I would like to see on iOS include the image in the video of the Honor 400 series, the AI planner assistant of the Realme GT7 series, the AI Mind of the OnePlus 13 series and the payment function of the Moto Razr Ultra 2025.
Each Android phone has a single AI function, and Apple could make worse than emulating many of them.
4. Better translations of AI
If there is only one app that Apple emulates in iOS 19, I hope it is the translation application of the Oppo Find X8 Ultra. Although this phone is currently limited to China, the translation application is very similar to that found on the new OnePlus 13, which also arrives on OnePlus phones in the United States, such as the OnePlus 13.
During a trip to China in April, I used Find X8 Ultra as a translator. Functionities such as conversation mode, audio entry, translation reading and entry of the camera have all facilitated navigation in a country where I did not speak or read the language.
In the Action button, iPhones already have an easy way to trigger translation software, which is also a hardware functionality that the X8 Ultra also uses. An improved translation application and care of more languages would therefore make the iPhone the ideal travel companion, which is simply not currently.
5. Management of the appropriate home screen
IOS 18 has seen Apple focus on a new home screen with customizable icons, a large new theme engine and resident widgets. After years of limited personalization of the home screen, these modifications brought the iPhone closer to the standard experience on Android devices.
However, Apple could go much further to imitate the personalization experience on many Android phones, in particular by adding features such as management of the home screen page, the redimensive icons and the grid arrangements. I would also love to see a more stable theme engine, because there are still some problems that occur when changing the colors of the theme.
Many recent iOS improvements from Apple have considerably improved the experience of the iPhone, and whatever is announced, iOS 19 (or iOS 26) is likely to be considerably different from iOS 18. I can’t wait to see what Apple ad at WWDC 2025 on Monday.
