At its annual IO convention on Wednesday, Google unveiled a slew of recent merchandise, options, and providers that can roll out over the approaching months. We obtained a glimpse of a brand new Pixel pill, watch and cellphone, a brand new finances Pixel 6a, the primary public beta of Android 13 and thrilling updates to look, AI and apps.
However right here at Macworld, we could not assist however discover how acquainted most of the bulletins sounded. There have been quite a lot of options unveiled at IO which might be apparently pulled straight from Apple’s playbook. Listed here are 5 options coming to Google and Android gadgets that Apple customers have liked 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 soon-to-be-launched new Google Pockets is your one-stop store in your digital life, storing digital IDs, boarding passes, live performance tickets, vaccination playing cards, loyalty playing cards, automobile keys and , in fact, bank cards. Talking from expertise, Android customers will like it.
Finest apps for pill and multitasking
To say the least, Google’s tablets aren’t precisely in the identical league because the iPad. With Android 13, Google is trying to change that by stealing a little bit of Apple’s superb pill expertise. New options for Android tablets embrace straightforward multitasking that permits you to use apps side-by-side and new interfaces “to take full benefit of the additional area, together with YouTube Music, Google Maps, Messages and extra. Once more”. We do not know if this may actually damage Apple’s pill dominance, however hey, higher late than by no means.
Copy and paste from telephones to tablets
Apple customers have lengthy had the flexibility to repeat one thing on their iPhone and paste it to their Mac due to the facility of Handoff and iCloud, and now Google is bringing the identical to telephones and tablets operating Android 13. In line with Google , “you may quickly be capable to copy a URL or picture out of your cellphone and paste it onto your pill.” nicely, that is a begin.
Pixel Buds Professional
Google unveiled and teased a bunch of {hardware} bulletins throughout its IO keynote, together with the brand new finances Pixel 6a, however probably the most intriguing was the Pixel Buds Professional. Whereas nobody would confuse the Pixel Buds A-Sequence wi-fi headphones with the AirPods, the Pixel Buds Professional have very comparable performance to the AirPods Professional. You get noise cancellation, transparency mode, spatial audio and “discover my” monitoring, and an in-ear design that sounds awfully much like the rumored AirPods Professional 2. Name them rivals should you should, however we’ll simply name them imitators.
digital crown
Google took a little bit of a break earlier than releasing its very first wearable on Google IO, but it surely lastly confirmed the existence of the Pixel Watch. Like different Android Put on OS watches, it has a round design with a reasonably large bezel and a brand new “contact” crown that seems to be Google’s model of the digital crown on the Apple Watch. We do not know if it is going to be as easy as Apple’s or if it would have a built-in ECG sensor, however the idea and look are just about an identical.