It is said that imitation is the most direct and ultimate way to beat competitors. According to the list of announced news features and products this Monday morning, a lot of the releases resemble a lot the features and products of rivals, especially Google.
Here we would like to see what competitors Apple is targeting with its latest “innovations.”
Notes VS Evernote
The Notes app that will come stock with iOS 9 is much more noteworthy, as it allows adding a photo, map, or URL to a note. You can even draw a sketch with your finger. By doing so, Apple puts its preinstalled Notes app in closer competition with third-party organization apps like Evernote, since Evernote can do everything the revamped Apple Notes does.
Intelligent Search VS Google Now
Apple is gunning hard for Google Now by making its intelligent search even better with proactive assistance on iOS 9. This means Apple devices will now anticipate what you’re looking for based on context and make predictions about what you want based on your past behavior. Siri will be able to set appointments. And there’s an API for search, which means the proactive assistance feature will be able to pull information from other apps people have on their phones. Apple is using privacy as a way to differentiate its personal assistance features from Google’s offerings.
Apple News VS Flipboard
According to Susan Bailey, Apple News is the best mobile reading experience ever. Aside from replacing its own mobile reader, News has some established competition from Flipboard. Just like Flipboard, you can pick a list of publishers or topics to follow, and Apple News will provide a customized news reader. Apple is betting on some sweet, sweet content deals to lure people away, like free New York Times articles. There aren’t ads yet, though we’ll see how long that lasts.
Apple Music VS Spotify
The biggest announcement of the day was Apple’s new streaming service, Apple Music. While this helps justify that $3 billion Beats acquisition last year, Spotify is years ahead with a loyal fanbase. Apple is releasing Apple Music for Android to give itself as wide an audience as possible, and to give as explicit a middle finger as possible to Google Play. With its Beats 1 radio station, Apple is also going after Pandora’s radio audience.
Apple VS Android
In a blatant attempt to prevent people from using Android, Apple released another Android app today, though it didn’t get any attention during the keynote: ‘Move to iOS’ is an app designed to help people switching from Android to Apple.The app transfers contacts, message history, photos and videos, bookmarks, email, calendars, wallpaper, and DRM-free songs and books from Android to Apple, and suggests third-party apps to re-add. It’ll be available for iOS 9, so it won’t be out until the fall.
