"Great artists steal" in the sense of recognizing good existing ideas and building upon them. Now that Google has laid out its hand at IO17, detailing its plans for Android O and the search giant's various apps and services, what great ideas can Apple borrow for its own products? Here's a look.
Google introduced a number of new products at its I/O conference this week, including the next-generation Android O operating system, the streamlined Android GO OS for emerging markets and Google Assistant for iOS. AppleInsider breaks down the event's biggest news in this video.
With Android O, due later this year, Google will be changing the look of its emoji to a look more consistent with the icons seen in Apple's iOS 10.
Google has unveiled new versions of Android at its annual I/O developer convention with features often inspired by the previous year's iOS. The main difference: Apple can launch a new version of iOS and broadly distribute it before Google can deploy its copy of last year's iOS across even a third of its installed base. This problem is getting worse each year for Google and its Android partners.
Google is doubling down on increasing Android's market share in emerging markets with the creation of 'Android Go,' a version of Android O optimized for lower-specification entry-level Android devices and the bandwidth constraints of local infrastructure where those devices are sold.
Major features of Google's next iteration of Android have been revealed at the I/O developer conference, with "Android O" gaining a Picture-in-Picture mode, notification dots on app icons, and the ability to autofill data within apps, shown alongside improvements to the security and speed of the mobile operating system.
Alphabet's Waymo is joining with Lyft to test self-driving cars on public roads, according to an announcement, while another Alphabet company — Google — is previewing a complete Android interface for cars which will nevertheless support Apple's CarPlay technology.
In 2014, Uber was discovered to be blocking authorities from seeing its cars in order to evade regulations or bans in a series of locations including Paris, Las Vegas, China and South Korea. The next year, Apple found out Uber was also flouting its iOS developer rules to identify users' devices by hardware ID—and nearly got kicked out of the App Store over it.
Mastercard is reportedly testing cards that integrate a fingerprint sensor, intended to offer a more convenient alternative to entering a PIN. Unlike Apple Pay, however, the cards would lack a series of important security features.
Over 100 attendees of the Coachella music festival in Southern California this weekend were separated from their mobile devices by a pickpocket working the crowds. Fortunately, Apple's Find My iPhone feature saved the day by helping locate the pilfered phones, allegedly nabbed by Reinaldo De Jesus Henao of New York.
Apple's lead in mobile performance—powered by the efficiency of iOS 10 and the computational speed of its custom A10 Fusion Application Processor—beats the newest, leading premium Androids in a wide range of tests from processor and 3D benchmarks to real-world device startup and app launching and multitasking. Not even 6GB of RAM and the extra cores of Qualcomm's fastest Snapdragon 835 can prop up the laggard, inefficient Android OS.
A series of previously unknown Windows hacking tools used by the U.S. National Security Agency has been leaked, enabling "zero day" exploits to be used against millions of Windows PCs to deface websites, lock up systems to demand a ransom payment or to steal emails and other data.
Canonical, the software support company that maintains Ubuntu Linux, has announced it is throwing in the towel on Ubuntu phones and tablets and ending work on Unity8—a concept it had hoped would create a "convergence" experience to enable its smartphones to act as a PC or smart TV.
Samsung's Tizen operating system is a mess of zero-day exploitable security flaws, broken encryption privacy issues and amateur-level coding mistakes, according to the findings of a security researcher participating in Kaspersky Lab's Security Analyst Summit.
The Apple Music app for Android was updated with a significant redesign on Tuesday, finally incorporating the overhauled interface iPhone and iPad users received with iOS 10 last September.
Google's Android is now the most popular OS in the world across all hardware platforms, having barely overtaken Microsoft Windows in March, according to Web analytics research published on Monday.
A report on global mobile app markets notes that Apple's iOS App Store remains the world's largest by revenues and is predicted to hold onto its crown as "the most lucrative" through 2021, although all of the world's competing Android software markets combined are expected to exceed the App Store in total revenues at some point later this year.
The launch of Samsung's 2017 flagship Galaxy S8 isn't causing any apparent concern among Apple's investors, who collectively pushed the company's stock even further upward today despite the announcements—and the continuous run up in Apple stock that has occurred since the iPhone maker last released earnings in January.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has reportedly axed plans to invest $100 million in Android founder Andy Rubin's smartphone startup, reportedly because of SoftBank's close business ties to Apple.
A new report by Kantar Worldpanel examining global smartphone sales data shows Apple's flagship iPhone 7 continues to win new market share for Apple in most of the regions tracked, outside of Spain, China and Japan.
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Daniel Eran Dilger
AppleInsider Staff
Roger Fingas
Malcolm Owen
Mike Wuerthele
