After buying an iPad Air a few months ago, I was curious about the experience of Google services on iOS. In previous years, I often heard about the features that are deployed in Google apps on their rival platform before turning them into their own operating system, so I wanted to delve into the biggest Google apps and services to see if they offered something new on iOS that we haven’t seen on Android. My investigation revealed several examples, seven of which are quite significant, in addition to some less substantial others.
Chrome reading list
We heard about Chrome’s future Read Later feature a year ago, but we haven’t seen it implemented for everyone yet. It just appeared in the Canary version of Chrome on Android, so it will take several weeks to reach the stable version. In the meantime, Google suggests that you use the page download function to replace it.
However, the reading list has been available on iOS for several months. Thanks to it, you can add any open page to your list or touch and hold any hyperlink on a website to save the linked page for later.
Functionality is limited with just the option to mark pages as read or exclude them from your list, but it’s the simplified offline reading mode that makes it all worthwhile.
After a page is saved, it is accessible online and offline, and anything superfluous is removed, leaving only the main content of the article with only the text and images. It is perfect for saving some articles to read and enjoy when you are away from a connection.
Anonymous Maps and Search gesture
Many Google apps on Android allow you to swipe up or down on your avatar image (top right) to switch between different connected accounts. We really love the feature, which is also available on iOS, albeit with an extra touch at the top.
If you tap and hold the avatar instead of swiping, you switch to incognito mode, so you can use the app without any activity being tracked or associated with your account. This works on the main Google app and Google Maps on iOS.
Gboard point shortcuts
In general, Gboard is miles ahead on Android compared to iOS: it’s smoother, offers a useful clipboard manager and those incredible emoji combos that we love so much, among other extras. But now there are two unique features that you can only find on Gboard for iOS. The first is dot shortcuts, a way to quickly insert predefined emojis, GIFs and stickers, simply by typing a dot (dot) followed by a keyword.
You can define as many keywords as you like, but they’re limited to six characters (that’s why my popcorn keyword is ‘corn’), so search and select three suggestions, which can be mixed and matched between emojis, stickers and GIFs. Given how clumsy it is to insert them on iOS, dot shortcuts are very welcome on the platform, but would be very useful on Android as well.
Comprehensive Gboard theme
The second feature of Gboard that you only find on iOS is the ability to customize any theme to your liking, down to the smallest details. You have to tap on the pen icon (edit) in the bottom right corner of any theme you choose and you will be taken to a new page with all the settings you could imagine: background transparency, text and background colors in normal and no text keys, borders around each one, pop-up text and background color and even slide the color and length of the trail.
This allows you to really customize the appearance of the keyboard to your liking, ranging from something extra dark suitable for nighttime use (or vampires) to something as modern as anything this striking mix of blue, green, yellow and red is.
Google Drive privacy screen
I’m still perplexed that Google doesn’t allow you to set up a biometric lock for many of your sensitive apps on Android. However, it offers this for Drive on iOS. The feature is called Privacy screen and can be activated when you exit Drive immediately after 10 seconds, 1 minute or 10 minutes. Whenever you try to return to Drive after the preset timeout, you will need to unlock it with the Touch ID or your PIN. This is a great security tool to keep anyone you don’t trust away from your confidential documents.
Google app incognito privacy
In addition to Drive, you can also block the Google app behind Touch ID, but only for incognito tabs after 15 minutes of inactivity. It makes a lot of sense. If you’ve started an anonymous search, you probably don’t want it to be tracked to you, either by Google’s algorithms or by people who may have physical access to your device. After moving away from it for 15 minutes, you forgot about it or were bypassed, so it’s just useful to see it blocked and require your biometric authentication to show its content.
It can also prevent you from seeing any sensitive content if you open the app when people are around, and stay inactive for a while and forget what you were doing in it the last time.
Multiple Google app tabs
Every week, there are at least five or six times when I want the Google app on Android to allow me to do a new search without closing or replacing the existing one. On iOS, the Google app has a tab toggle button that allows you to perform a new search or open another recommended article, keeping the current one (s) open.
Switching between searches and running articles is as simple as selecting that thumbnail, and you can set the open tabs to automatically close after a day, week or month.
A little more
Chrome multi-window made easy
It is possible to open two windows side by side in Chrome for Android, but you must enable multiple windows first, then tap and hold any link on the current open page to open it in the second window. It’s quite hidden and not very simple – I’ve been researching Chrome’s features for years and only learned about it a few weeks ago.
On iOS, the process is much more straightforward. You can tap and hold any link to open it in a new window, without having to switch to multi-window mode first, or you can use iOS gestures. Easypeasy.
Recent Chrome tabs on the switcher
Another small improvement of Chrome on iOS is the convenient tab switcher that allows you to move between the tabs open on your current device, but also to consult a list of your recently closed tabs and all the tabs that you have kept open on other devices. These features are all available on Android, but are not as easily accessible as on iOS through the tab switcher.
Gmail suspension settings
On iOS, Gmail allows you to customize your snooze settings within the app, thereby preventing you from having to open the web interface to change them. Smaller, but why not add it to Android too?
Hide illustrations in Google Calendar
I love the beautiful Google Calendar illustrations for events, but they may not appeal to everyone. If you prefer to keep your schedule serious and functional, you can disable the illustrations of months and events in the iOS Calendar app using two buttons that are not found anywhere on Android.
And so, your calendar looks dull again, with only calendar colors punctuating the schedule.
Restrict Google search results by time
Search tools were added to the Google app on Android last year and mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again. However, they are available on iOS, allowing you to restrict your search results by date (any time, previous time, 24 hours, week, month or year). It is confusing to find these filters on the web (desktop and mobile) and in the iOS app, but not on Android.
Widgets, more or less
Google is still offering today’s obsolete extensions (iOS 13 and earlier) for some of its iOS applications. Although they are not yet official widgets, they offer many features that could easily be implemented as an Android widget. Unfortunately, we don’t have any of these on our favorite platform.
Among the most interesting options are some quick actions for Chrome (including QR scanning), suggested sites you visit often, and a hodgepodge of interesting Maps widgets for local traffic, public transit departures near you, travel times until your home or work and suggest actions by Local Guides. All of this would be welcome on Android.
Many Google apps offer feature parity on Android and iOS, but some (like Chrome or the Assistant) remain more powerful on Android. It is curious, however, to see that the opposite is true in some cases, and that the Google iOS teams are launching some features for the Apple platform before offering them on Android. Of course, none of them are crucial, but several are very cool and useful and would be more than welcome additions to our mobile experience.