Last week, Apple unveiled iOS 9 at the WWDC 2015 keynote. The upcoming version of iOS comes with only a handful of major new features, but packs in a lot of usability enhancements to make the overall experience of using the OS pleasant.

Not all the features that Apple has added in iOS 9 are pathbreaking and original though.  You could argue that some of the features have been inspired by Android, though in certain cases, Apple’s implementation is better than that of Google and other Android OEMs. Apple taking inspiration from Android for features is not a bad thing, since ultimately it will benefit iOS users.

Nonetheless, we take a look at some of the features in iOS 9 that clearly seems to be inspired by Android.

Proactive Assistant

With iOS 9, Apple is supercharging Siri’s personal assistant abilities to make it more contextually aware like Google Now. Siri will act as a ‘Proactive Assistant‘ in iOS 9 and will be capable of automatically reminding users when to leave for a meeting, automatically create reminders for meetings from emails and more.

While Proactive Assistant is clearly inspired from Google Now, it is better than the latter in certain areas. For example, Siri will automatically be able to recognise numbers from emails a user receives and display their name when they call. Perhaps the major advantage Proactive Assistant has over Google Now is that it is not linked to the user’s Apple ID and any data collected by the assistant is discarded after use. For privacy freaks, Siri’s Proactive Assistant is a much better option than Google Now since it is completely anonymous and does not share any data with third-party apps.

Proactive Assistant is a perfect example of Apple taking inspiration from Android for a feature, and then adding their own take to it.

Low power mode

iOS 9 will be the first major update that will extend battery life of existing iPhones and iPads. Apple claims that iOS 9 will extend battery life by an additional hour due to optimisations and tweaks made to the underlying operating system. In addition to these tweaks, Apple has also included a low power mode in iOS 9 that will extend the battery life of iOS devices by 3 hours. To achieve this though, Apple disables features like mail fetching, background app refresh and more.

This feature is similar to the Power saving mode that Google introduced in Android 5.0 Lollipop, and OEMs have been offering a similar feature since the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and Android 4.4 KitKat days. With the Power saving mode enabled on Android devices, background syncing of Gmail, Contacts, Calendars are disabled, and the CPU speed and display brightness are also reduced to increase battery life.

Apple could have gone a step further and taken inspiration from the Extreme Power Saving mode found in certain Android devices under which they can last up to 24 hours with only 10 percent of charge. Under this mode though, Android devices are basically converted into a dump phone and are unable to run any third-party apps. The display mode is also changed to grayscale to save battery power. It is likely that Apple did not add such a mode in iOS 9 because it drastically affects the user experience.

Case sensitive keyboard

On previous version of iOS, the characters on the stock keyboard would not change their case even if the user tapped the shift key. In iOS 9, tapping the shift key will actually make the characters on the keyboard change their case. This feature has been present in Android and even other mobile OSes right from their inception, and so it is kind mind boggling that it took Apple so long to implement it. Better later than never, I guess.

Siri powered Spotlight

Siri now powers Spotlight in iOS 9 to provide users with relevant suggestions as and when they need. For example, users can search through their contacts, messages and even deep through apps right from Spotlight. This is similar to how the Google Now search function works in Android, which also allows users to search through their contacts, music library, data from other apps and more.

Just like Google Now, Spotlight can also be used to search and get the latest updates on stocks, do simple maths calculations, check the weather forecast and more.

Apps & Miscellaneous

Notes

Apple has taken inspiration from some of Google’s stock Android apps for some system apps of iOS 9 as well. The new Notes app, for example, allows users to create checklists, add photos, map directions and more. All these features have long been present in Google Keep — the note taking app for Android. The only notable feature that Keep lacks is the ability to draw sketches, but makes up for it by allowing users to color code their notes, and share their notes with their friends and families.

Apple Maps

Apple has updated Apple Maps in iOS 9 to add support for public transit navigation and nearby. The former will provide users with navigation directions for public transportation services in selected countries across the world, while the latter will provide them with a list of places near them for eating, shopping, and more.

Google Maps has had these features since ages now. This should not really come as a surprise once you consider how poor Apple Maps is when compared to Google Maps.

Search in Settings

With Apple and Google adding so many features to their mobile OS with every new update, finding the right option in the Settings menu has become a challenging task for users. To fix this issue, Google added a search button to the Settings menu with Lollipop, and Apple is doing the same with iOS 9.

Now, it can be argued that some of the new Android inspired features were in the pipeline from Apple since quite sometime, and it is just that Google beat them to announcing it first. For example, while Apple has already announced new ways to multitask under iOS 9 on the iPad, Google has added a similar feature to Android M under experimental stages.

In the end, Apple taking inspiration from Google for some features of iOS 9 is not a bad thing. Even Google takes inspiration from Apple for new features to solve some problems with its OS. It is not possible for both companies to always come up with unique solutions to a similar set of problems and to meet consumer needs with widely different approach.

In the end, irrespective of which company takes inspiration from whom, we as consumers benefit the most, so we should not be complaining.

What do you think? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.