Apple is often accused of stealing hardware and software concepts from other companies and releasing them as their own, often to great acclaim and popularity. iOS 5 is no exception, with both Android and Windows Phone users suggesting Apple has taken the cream of the crop for itself.
Take the new notification system built into iOS 5. Apple's mobile users have been crying out for a better alert system since push alerts were introduced in iOS 3. Now they may finally have it thanks to Apple lifting the feature from Android.
There's a comparison of the two systems over at Boy Genius Report. They're quite happy to agree that Apple has taken the idea from Android but argue it's not a straight copy. Apple has vastly improved the system, the comparison claims, making it much more usable.
Android notifications appear as a set of icons in the status bar but there's little control beyond that. Apple notifications can be customised and provide more information right within the notification message itself. It's vaguely ironic that, here at least, Apple's system offers more control than Android.
No doubt this article will bring out both Android and Apple fans, each defending their platform (almost) to the death. Regardless of which platform does notifications best, it's clear Apple needed to improve its system. Hopefully by hiring extra talent it will continue to drop useful and well-crafted features into future versions of iOS.
We're quite amused at how quickly both companies and passionate users cry foul when a competitor appears to copy a particular feature. There are only so many ways to build a phone and put software on it, which is why lawsuits like Samsung versus Apple are increasingly ludicrous. Let's just say that whether you're a fan of the little green robot or the slightly spoiled fruit, you've now got a decent notification system.
Android App 
RSS Feeds 
iPhone App 
Newsletters 
Comments 10
Add your comment
ChromeShark 14 June, 2011 17:42
The Android notification system was revamped for Honeycomb so it's likely to be updated for phones in Ice Cream Sandwich. Hoping Google drop a bombshell by getting the first ICS handsets out before iPhone 5.
anonymous 14 June, 2011 18:04
Samsung do deserve most of apples complaints to be fair, they have even started putting single silver plastic strips around the outside of some phones to imitate the apple signal bar, Personally i dont want my phone to look like a iPhone, because then I will get mugged.
but this is a copy, it may be improved but at the end of the day, when you take it for what it is, it fundamentally is the same thing
anonymous 14 June, 2011 19:41
yeh apple have copied a lot of stuff, its nice to see nokia win that law suite apple are crumbling a bit this year
Anonymous 14 June, 2011 22:51
Not to mention Apple have copied numerous ideas from the Jailbreak people. But, amazingly, iOS 5 is still basically the old version, just in slightly different clothes. They are running out of ideas, nothing revolutionary about it.
Anonymous 15 June, 2011 12:48
apple dont have an imagination that why everything is so black and white and the reason for this story....
Anonymous 15 June, 2011 13:43
Apple only make 50%+ of the profits from the smartphone industry. What losers!
Dean Shepherd 15 June, 2011 17:52
"Android notifications appear as a set of icons in the status bar but there's little control beyond that. Apple notifications can be customised and provide more information right within the notification message itself. It's vaguely ironic that, here at least, Apple's system offers more control than Android."
Actually the beauty of Android is there are many many apps to change all of this....you can have much more stuff mentioned in the notifications and thats NOT just for Rooted phones....so we do have a degree of customisation...thats the kind of customisation that only jailbreak phones would really get as we know the bog standard apple system (more the now system no iOs5) is so closed and normally apps that conflict with what THEY want are normall banned...where as android welcome ANY kind of app which brings change..
I will agree that the bog standard system is a little closed off, but it does the job straight out of the box well though...
Anonymous 17 June, 2011 00:49
i love them both, hence why when i had an iphone i was massively impressed with android 2.1 & 2.2. not impressed much with ios5 i was really hoping for a reason to perhaps go back to the iphone just because i miss VLC player which plays EVERYTHING! Very excited about WP's mango update coupled with nokia services. If that goes well and WP get the useful apps instead of all the crud they have in their market place that is my next stop. Looooooong way to go for an upgrade though so just enjoying being a voyeur! :)
anonymous 18 October, 2011 02:27
your all so stupid. Yes the pul down menu was prbably taken from android but apple took it and changed it. You got a lot of nerve to critisize apple since android is a cheap immitation of the iphone. if it wasnt for apple we would all be using crappy desktops and old cell phones. the iphone is what created android and its sad how much droid copies apple
selvakumar 21 December, 2012 20:43
try this samsung
well before sucksung, which is introduced in 2008
Can someone contact David Ashman and put this crap to rest.
http://www.lockinfo.net