Android takes Apple's good ideas and makes it available to everybody

In this week’s The Vergecast, David Pierce said (approximately 1 hour into the podcast episode):

The best version of Android basically takes all of Apple's good ideas and makes it available to everybody

The two examples provided were Google Fast Pair (AirPods features on other brands: Bose, Sony etc) and Android version of Airtag. However, the best of Google products are available to everyone regardless of who the device manufacturer is. Unlike, Apple where, its best features are only available on Apple devices. RCS is another great example because Apple refuses to support it. Apple does not want Android and iOS users to coexist. Google has a dedicated page on the Android website explaining why Apple needs to fix texting for everyone. Do we really want our kids to decide who their friends are based on whether the text messages are blue or green? This divide is unnecessary and is real.

As a consumer, if I had to choose, I want Google to succeed because the benefits are not limited to those who can afford expensive devices. Google does everything at scale, their approach is not limited to their devices. Google is slowly bringing their version of AirDrop to all Android and Windows devices. Hopefully, they support Apple devices as well.

Google by no means is perfect and neither is Apple for that matter. Their primary motivation is to make as much money as possible. However, the approach appears to be vastly different, where one is locking their users to their ecosystem and the other is simply not by being available on every platform.

Moments after hearing The Vergecast episode, I received a FaceTime call from my wife. I answered the call on my MacBook and at one point, my wife wanted to me go downstairs to show her something so I switched the call from the MacBook to the iPhone, went downstairs and then came back upstairs, switched the call from the iPhone back to the MacBook. This, in essence, is when it works, Apple devices just work seamlessly with each other. Everyone I know uses WhatsApp, so if she had called me on WhatsApp, I could have answered on my MacBook but there is no way to switch the WhatsApp video call from MacBook to iPhone or vice versa.