5 innovations I want from iOS... that'll keep me away from Android

Over the years, iOS has matured into an extremely capable operating system, largely sticking with Apple’s original ‘closed garden’ vision, while expanding to add useful Android-like features, such as an app library and deep customization.

But no operating system is perfect – if it was, then there would be no need for the major new iOS versions we see every year.

There are always improvements to be made, but with this article, I’m thinking not so much about small tweaks and optimizations, as bigger, more daring, or simply more innovative changes that I’d like to see brought to iOS.

Some of these are likely limited by current technology, though hopefully won’t be for long, while others would simply take Apple choosing to incorporate them. But everything I’ve listed below could make a big difference to iOS and how you use it.

1. Deep AI integration

So far, Apple is a bit behind on the AI front. Its Apple Intelligence features were later to land than some rivals and still feel a bit underbaked. But that could soon change.

We know for example that Apple is partnering with Google to deliver a Gemini-powered Siri overhaul, which once available later this year, might bring the AI experience on iOS more up to the standards of what you can get on Android.

But hopefully that’s just the start, as what I’d really like to see is AI that’s deeply and intelligently integrated with the whole operating system. An AI agent that can surface what you need, when you need it, offer proactive advice, and maybe even change the whole interface according to your shifting needs.

This would be an AI that can carry out any task on your phone when asked, whether ordering groceries from a shopping app, forwarding concert tickets to a friend, or whatever else. It would work within and across all apps – not just those made by Apple, and importantly it would do a lot of its job without even being asked, by anticipating your needs before you can even voice them.

2. More insightful health and fitness analysis

We’ve heard rumors that Apple’s is planning to launch an AI-powered – and subscription based – Health+ service later this year, which might deliver health advice, food tracking, and nutrition planning. I hope these rumors are true – and that this goes beyond what you’ll find on rival health and fitness tracking services.

What I really want here is genuinely useful, personalized insights and suggestions. Raw data is fine, but telling us what to do with it is where many fitness trackers fall down – they either make no suggestions at all, or their suggestions are obvious, vague, or broad.

What I want from a future version of iOS is for it to give us insights more like what we might get from a personal trainer, a nutritionist, or even a doctor (though of course I wouldn’t recommend relying on any AI or technology over a real doctor).

I want advice and suggestions that are clear enough to be easy to action, personalized enough to make a real difference to our health and fitness, and thoughtful enough that they’re not things we’ve heard a million times before, or figured out on our own.

3. Proper app limits

There’s already a way to limit your use of apps in iOS, with ‘App Limits’ letting you set time limits for how much you can use specific apps – or specific kinds of apps – each day. This can be handy if you’re trying to spend less time on your phone, or simply trying to waste less time in specific apps.

Except, of course, that when you reach that time limit, it only takes a few taps to ignore the limit for the day and keep on scrolling, browsing, posting, or whatever else you were trying to limit yourself on.

So I’d like to see more serious app limits added to a future version of iOS – ones that can’t easily be ignored. I can imagine Apple might be reluctant to add a feature that lets people fully block off certain apps for a period of time, but we’re all adults here, and this could make a serious difference in curbing smartphone addiction.

4. Split screen or picture-in-picture for all apps

iOS already offers picture-in-picture for some apps, but it’s mostly limited to select video streaming and video calling ones, and there’s no true split-screen mode where you can run two apps side-by-side.

Of course, iPhones – even the largest ones like the iPhone 17 Pro Max – are relatively small devices, so this makes some sense. But particularly at that larger size they are just about big enough that this could be a useful multitasking feature, so it’s one I’d like to see, so that – much like on iPad – you can choose to run any two apps next to each other on your phone’s screen.

Technically, even on iPad there are some limitations here, as app developers need to enable the feature, but I’d like to see it offered as standard across all apps in iOS.

5. Complete continuity

Apple devices already offer better continuity than most brands – you can use Handoff to pick up where you left off across Apple devices with certain apps. But this doesn’t work with everything, and you can use iPhone Mirroring to view and interact with your iPhone on your Mac’s display – but this puts it in a tiny iPhone-sized window, and doesn’t work the other way around.

So I want to see even better continuity in a future version of iOS. The dream would be for Handoff to seamlessly work across all apps – even those that aren’t natively available on some Apple devices. With that, there would be no real need for mirroring, as you’d have direct and immediate access to everything you’re doing across every device.

This might not be realistic, but this sort of seamless and complete continuity would definitely be innovative, and would go a long way to keeping users locked into the Apple ecosystem.

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