Android M features that Google borrowed from Apple's iOS

Google's I/O 2015 gave us a pretty extensive sneak peek at the features that Android M will introduce later this year; meanwhile, Cupertino showed us some of the additions that will arrive with iOS 9 during its WWDC 2015 a few days ago.

To be completely honest, both Android M and iOS 9 are certainly not oriented at visually overhauling the platforms; on the contrary, both are centered around under-the-hood improvements that aim to enhance the user experience on a more basic, fundamental level by focusing on things like performance, battery management, and general feature polishment.

That said, there are still features that iOS has had long before Android M came around. Don't believe us? Well, check them out below! Don't forget to leave a comment afterwards!

App permissions

So far in Android, users were asked to grant or deny permissions to apps en masse right before the app gets installed on your device. With Android M, apps will ask for certain permissions immediately before the app needs it, which is what iOS has been doing for a long time now.

Native fingerprint sensor support

iOS has come with fingerprint support ever since 2013, but Android will be getting this handy (no pun intended!) feature later this year thanks to Android M. Yes, we know that many manufacturers of Android phones have employed their phones with fingerprint scanning support, but Android is still devoid of such a built-in solution.

Doze

Doze, Android M's battery-saving feature, is basically what iOS has been doing for years now. It puts the device in a state of deep sleep and hibernates apps, only allowing alarms and priority notifications to wake it up. This is one of the secrets for the insane standby endurance of Apple's mobile devices.

Floating text selection menu

Unlike iOS, when a user tries to select and copy a string of text in Android, they are greeted by a unintuitive bar at the top of the current screen. Well, this will be changed in Android M, which will get a floating bar with 'cut', 'copy', and 'paste' buttons. Can you guess where this feature is coming from? Yes, iOS.

Repeat caller alerts in Do Not Disturb mode

The native Do Not Disturb mode in iOS, apart from silencing all alarms, allows the device's ringer to go off if someone calls you two times in three minutes. It seems that Google has grown a liking for this feature, which will come with Android M later this year.

MIDI support

Currently, Android doesn't natively support MIDI, short for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, while iOS has been donning such a compatibility for years now. Simply put, it allows you to hook an electronic musical instrument straight to your phone and produce sounds with it.