Congrats, Apple, you just caught up to the Pixel 3

We all have that one friend who’s always late. No matter what time you tell them or how many reminders you give them, they cannot show up on time. And yet, you’re always happy to see them walk through the door. You knew they’d get there eventually, or at least you hoped so. Well, that friend is Apple today, and the party it’s finally arrived at is basic calling features. The year may be 2025, but I’m happy to party like it’s 2018 — if only for a day.

I get it, Apple, it’s easy to look up to Google. Its Pixel designs are more fun than the iPhone, its Material 3 Expressive update looks cleaner than Liquid Glass, and its overall AI experience is, well, better. I’m also quicker to recommend a Pixel to someone looking for their next phone than I’ve ever been with an iPhone. So, of course it makes sense for Apple to finally pinch a calling feature or two from the king. Only this time, I think I’m shocked it took so long.

After all, some of Google’s best calling features have been around since I was in college. It introduced Call Screen on the Pixel 3 series and followed up with Hold For Me two years later on the Pixel 5. I was envious of the first one when my roommate came home from Christmas break with a brand new Pixel, and I experienced the second one for myself when I upgraded from my shattered Galaxy S10 before its time had truly come. Strangely enough, they quickly became so good and so helpful that I almost forgot they were there — I just relied on them as if they’d always existed.

But now, with Apple set to introduce its take on both features as part of iOS 26, I wonder what took so long. Did we not praise Google’s clever calling features enough when they were new? To hear Apple tell it, Call Screening builds on the base established by Live Voicemail, which has only been around since iOS 17 in late 2023. Google, by comparison, has offered voicemail transcription since it launched Google Voice in 2009 — that’s quite the gap if you ask me. After all, Google didn’t declare that its screening process was based on the leaving of a voicemail, so I’m not sure why Apple feels like it has to be.

I suppose the delay from Google adding Hold For Me to Apple picking up Call Assist isn’t as considerable — six years instead of more than eight — but I’m not sure it’s much better. I mean, Google had this figured out before Gemini was anything more than a constellation and it still shipped flagship phones with just one rear camera, but Apple was too busy slowly adding 5G support to the iPhone 12 series.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be quite so down about iOS 26. Do I like the look of Liquid Glass? No, does anyone? However, by pinching a few longstanding Android features, I at least feel like Apple is showing a sign of life. It’s finally looking outside its walled garden and finding at least patches of green on the other side. Sure, those patches have been there for nearly a decade, but as they say, better late than never.

Besides, sometimes it feels like a push from Apple is precisely what the likes of Google and Samsung need to raise their own game. They got a little bit too comfortable with the way that One UI and Pixel UI had been for a long time, letting significant improvements fall behind clever new AI wrinkles, so I hope that Apple’s raid of classic calling features makes them both think a little bit longer about what people actually need from their phones. And, now that Apple is introducing custom backgrounds to iMessage conversations, it feels like only a matter of time before we see that come to Android, too.

If there’s one thing I hope to see end as soon as possible, though, it’s the trend of simplifying camera interfaces, as seen above. Google was the king of the streamlined camera app for a long, long time, entirely ignoring manual controls with the excuse of “just trust us,” and now Apple is doing the same. It’s boiled everything down into the two tabs you see above, pushing everything else into the realm of the Camera Control or the menu on the far right side, and I don’t think I like that. I was okay with trusting Google’s image processing, but Apple hasn’t built quite the same reputation yet.

So, please, Apple, think twice before you copy too much from the Pixel 3. It was a great phone back in the day, but times have changed just a little bit.