The iPhone 16 series will be the most Android Apple series ever

Enter iOS 18. Yeah, it's not news anymore, but still, this was the thing that got people talking. Home screen icon arrangement, the biggest weapon Android users had over iPhone rivals, is now in iOS (soon to be, it's still in beta).

Then there's the icon customization. It strongly resembles Android's Material You design idea. Why would you want to do that? I thought one of the key strengths of iPhones was uniformity, for lack of a better word.

I even grew accustomed to the interface and totally understood the hype when I was switching between iPhones for word-related purposes. Now Apple wants us to be able to change the look of the UI. Why?

The same applies to the Control Center customization, lock screen shortcut customization, and even RCS. Then we have a dedicated Game Mode (after years and years of boasting how iPhones don't need one). I wonder what the real reason is for doing these things. Lack of imagination and inspiration for real innovation, or market-research-driven sales-oriented factors.

The hardware elephant in the room

I know Apple's hand was forced on this one, but in conjunction with the software overhaul I mentioned above, the USB-C on the bottom of the iPhone 16 series makes this lineup even more Android-like than the previous one.

To be honest, I didn't dislike the Lightning connector when I had to use iPhones. It gave me a sense of exclusivity, and the male connector on the cable makes more sense to me even today. The ability to plug it in regardless of the side it's facing was also cool, and it came earlier than USB-C.

I'm not singing Lightning Port praises here; I'm just saying that Apple lost that cool factor thanks to the EU. And in the end, it's for the best. In the long run, it means fewer cables running around, and potentially faster charging and data transfer, but it is what it is.

The Artificial (intelligence) elephant in the room

Apple, being Apple, decided that if the company couldn't invent a large language model of its own, it would just hijack the name. Enter Apple Intelligence.

Most of the AI features that I was able to tinker with, do the same thing all of these LLMs are doing. Apple just uses different names. Image Playground basically does what Pixel and Galaxy devices have been doing for two generations: generating images from visual or text prompts.



Clean Up is just Magic Eraser, and we've had this for years, and transcribing and translating AI-infused services have also been around for quite a while.

AI powered Siri is just Gemini or Galaxy AI for poor iOS people, and long story short, Apple Intelligence makes the iPhone 16 look even more Android, because most Android users are already familiar with these features, rebranded or not.

The ecosystem elephant

But the ecosystem is still in place and working as smoothly as ever, you would say. That's true, but others (Samsung) have caught up, and Apple doesn't hold the exclusive key to a vast and locked ecosystem anymore.

Take the Galaxy Ring, for example. It's locked inside Samsung Health, and you can't use it with other Android phones. Other brands are starting to pull these tricks off as well, and even though we're talking about Huawei, Xiaomi, Honor, and the like, the trend is unsettling.

So, in this case, it's not like Apple deliberately tried to make the iPhone 16 series Android like, it's the other way around. The Android brand closed the gap on their side.

The price factor

iPhones used to be a status symbol for a lot of reasons, but the price tag was one of the major ones. Maybe it's an aging stereotype, but earlier iPhone devices were more expensive than the alternative Android flagships.

Now it seems that this price factor has been lost completely. Samsung has not only mimicked the iPhone prices for the past couple of generations, but sometimes even outdid Apple in the price department.

Other brands (looking at you, Sony) are taking things even further, charging for a flagship phone the same money as a foldable. And speaking of foldables, the longer Apple delays its first foldable, the more chance there is that it will be super Android-like, and people will just bash Apple for copying flip-and-fold phones that've been around for generations.

Conclusion

This article wasn't meant to evoke negative feelings, and wasn't meant to become a herd of elephants, although it might've felt like I was triggered in one or two parts. The only thing I'm triggered about is the unification of the smartphone as a device.

And sometimes I even think that we're to blame. After all, that's what we seem to want, according to sales figures. We may lament the good old days of phone diversity, but we end up upgrading our iPhone 14 or Galaxy S22 to the latest model, even though the differences are almost non-existent.

What do you think about it? Is the iPhone 16 series the most Android Apple series ever, and what does it mean for you?