At its annual IO convention Wednesday, Google unveiled a slew of latest merchandise, options, and companies that can roll out over the next months. We bought a peek at a brand new Pixel pill, watch, and cellphone, a brand new price range Pixel 6a, the primary Android 13 public beta, and thrilling search, AI, and app updates.
However right here at Macworld, we couldn’t assist however discover how acquainted lots of the bulletins sounded. There have been quite a lot of options unveiled at IO which are seemingly ripped straight from Apple’s playbook. Listed here are 5 options coming to Google and Android gadgets that Apple customers have been having fun with for years:
Google Pockets
One of many greatest app bulletins at IO was the conversion of Google Pay to Google Pockets. Granted, Google Pockets was a factor earlier than Apple Card, however this newest iteration takes quite a lot of cues from the iPhone app. The brand new Google Pockets, launching quickly, is your one-stop place to your digital life, storing digital IDs, boarding passes, live performance tickets, vaccination playing cards, loyalty playing cards, automobile keys, and naturally, bank cards. Talking from expertise, Android customers will like it.
Higher pill apps and multitasking
To place it mildly, Google’s tablets aren’t precisely in the identical league because the iPad. With Android 13, Google is seeking to change that by stealing slightly from Apple’s superior pill expertise. Among the many new options coming to Android tablets are straightforward multitasking that allows you to use apps facet by facet and new interfaces “to take full benefit of the additional area together with YouTube Music, Google Maps, Messages and extra.” We’re undecided if that’s gonna put a lot of a dent in Apple’s pill dominance, however hey, higher late than by no means.
Common Copy and Paste
Apple customers have lengthy had the power to repeat one thing on their iPhone and paste it on their Mac because of the ability of Handoff and iCloud, and now Google is bringing the identical factor to Android telephones and tablets. In response to Google, “you’ll quickly have the ability to copy a URL or image out of your cellphone, and paste it in your pill.” The system (seen beneath) appears a bit clunkier than Apple’s totally seamless Common Copy and Paste, however hey, it’s a begin.
Pixel Buds Professional
Google unveiled and teased a bunch of {hardware} bulletins throughout its IO keynote, together with the brand new price range Pixel 6a, however essentially the most intriguing was the Pixel Buds Professional. Whereas nobody would confuse the Pixel Buds A-Sequence wi-fi earbuds with AirPods, the Pixel Buds Professional have a really related characteristic set to AirPods Professional. You get noise cancelling, transparency mode, spatial audio and ‘discover my’ monitoring, and an in-ear design that appears awfully much like the rumors of the AirPods Professional 2. Name them rivals should you should, however we’ll simply name ’em copycats.
Digital Crown
Google stopped slightly wanting releasing its first ever wearable at Google IO, but it surely did lastly affirm the existence of the Pixel Watch. Like different Android Put on OS watches, it has a round design with a reasonably sizable bezel and a brand new “tactile” crown that seems to be Google’s model of the Digital Crown on the Apple Watch. We don’t know if it’ll be as clean as Apple’s or have a buillt-in ECG sensor, however the idea and the look is virtually equivalent.
