Apple's WDCC 2020 event opened with a showcase of upcoming iOS 14 upgrades coming to iPhones... that Android users have enjoyed for years already. As expected, the situation sparked another online battle between smartphone owners.
The problem (if it can really be called a problem) comes from the feature gap between Android devices and Apple devices. Apple is the only company making iPhones. Basically everyone else who makes phones works on Android. As a result, design iteration proceeds dramatically faster on Android devices than on iOS phones, and the fact that we're limited to three iPhones per year if we're lucky makes the situation worse. High-end Android devices are objectively more feature-filled than iPhones, so whenever Apple announces a new feature that Android users already had, That Guy has to let everyone on the internet know.
The focus on iOS 14 news at WDCC 2020 triggered the same kind of debate and we're probably all better for it. The jokes and memes were flying before the keynote even ended as some major parts of iOS 14 – App Clips, customizable widgets, picture-in-picture video playback, and more – have existed on Android devices dating as far back as 2014. With no choice but to be jerks about it, Android Twitter let loose.
In their defense, iPhone users didn't take it all lying down.
Is iPhone 'Playing Catch-Up' Actually A Problem
The feature advantages Android users enjoy come at the cost of having a complicated market. Even if one were to stick with a manufacturer like Samsung, that one company has multiple models of phones every single year. Within the Galaxy line of smartphones, there are the flagships like the Galaxy S20, but there are also the Note phones, spin-offs of the Galaxy S, and all manner of contract-free phones sold in big-box retailers. Further complicating things is the issue of different companies using modified versions of Android. The feature set of this year's OnePlus 8 Pro operating system differs from that of the Samsung Galaxy line, despite all these devices running on the latest version of Android.
Being an Android devotee requires a willingness to deal with a certain level of smartphone research that iPhone fans can almost entirely ignore. The new iPhone will generally do more than the last one, and iOS 14 will be on it. To some, that simplicity is great, especially considering how tech terms that we used to only hear at CES are now becoming part of household conversations. To others, Apple is simply profiting from its customers' lack of information about the smartphone industry, regardless of whether anyone should care about that information, to begin with.