The 5 best iOS 26 features I want Android to copy ASAP

Well, Apple has done it. After releasing iOS 18 in 2024, this year’s iPhone update jumps up by eight to iOS 26. Not only is the new name significant, but thanks to Apple’s new Liquid Glass redesign, it’s also one of the most drastic iOS updates we’ve seen in years.

While I hope the whole Liquid Glass thing stays far, far away from Android, there are some elements of iOS 26 that I actually quite like. They aren’t drastic features, but they’re things I’d love to see come to Android — as blasphemous as that may sound.

One of my favorite updates in iOS 26 is incredibly unimportant, but I can’t help but love it. The lock screen clock now automatically changes in size to take up all the free space above/around the subject of your lock screen photo, and it seamlessly changes from picture to picture.

What I particularly love is how, as notifications appear, the clock shrinks a little bit with each new notification card that pops up, and then expands again as you swipe them away. It’s so much more reactive than anything on Android, and while it’s purely an aesthetic touch, I think it looks incredible — and I’d love to have it on my Android phone.

For all of the AI calling features Google has added to Pixel phones over the years, the Google Phone app itself looks pretty archaic. It’s not poorly designed or difficult to use, but it just feels outdated and in need of a fresh coat of paint.

If/when Google refreshes the Phone app, I’d love to see the company take inspiration from what Apple is doing with its Phone app in iOS 26. Instead of isolated pages for your recent calls, voicemails, etc., the new Calls page groups everything together in a really clever way.

Your favorite contacts are pinned at the top of the app for easy access, while the Recents timeline not only shows recent calls you’ve made or received, but also any voicemails you have. It puts so much more information on the screen at once, and it’s infinitely better than Google’s Phone app — or any of the other manufacturer phone apps on Android today.

As someone who was on a plane last year more times than I can count, I know the importance of a good digital boarding pass. Boarding passes in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet are both solid these days, but iOS 26 is making Apple’s versions even better.

Now, boarding passes in Apple Wallet include a few additional controls not previously available. My favorite option is the “Share Flight Tracker” button, which allows you to quickly share your flight with a contact, and if they have an iPhone, it’ll appear for them as a Live Activity. My mom constantly asks me to share my flight info with her whenever I travel, and having something like this on Google Wallet boarding passes would make my life ten times easier.

I also appreciate the new options for viewing an airport terminal map or tracking your luggage directly from your boarding pass. They’re things you could already do in other applications, but having them surfaced for you right by your boarding pass just makes sense.

Going back to the lock screen for a moment, I absolutely love that iOS 26 now lets you see animated album artwork from Apple Music on the lock screen. Apple Music is filled with gorgeous animations for so many albums, and only being able to see them with the Apple Music app open is a damn shame.

While not a necessary feature by any means, it’d make me so happy to see Android follow suit here, although I imagine implementing it would be more difficult. Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal all have animated album covers, and they all have Android apps, so there would be sources to pull from if Android ever added live album artwork to the lock screen. And hey, maybe it would encourage YouTube Music to finally get on the animated album artwork train.

I’m a big credit card person, with cash back and points scattered across multiple different cards and accounts. But more often than not, I never think to redeem my credit card rewards, so they often sit unattended for months (if not years) at a time.

iOS 26 introduces the ability to instantly redeem your cash back/points when using Apple Pay in person, which I think is fantastic. While I save my Chase and Amex points for travel redemptions, it’d be great to pay for coffee or lunch using my Discover or US Bank cash back. It’s a relatively small feature and one I admittedly wouldn’t use all the time, but it’d still be great to see Google Wallet on Android offer something similar.

As Picasso once said in a quote Steve Jobs was famously inspired by, “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” Everyone copies everyone in the mobile tech world, and it’s something we’ve seen time and again — whether it’s Apple copying something from Google or vice versa.

While I think what we’ve seen of iOS 26 so far largely pales in comparison to Google’s Android 16 update (specifically, Android 16 QPR1), it’s important to give Apple credit for what it got right with this year’s iPhone software. I’m certainly not a fan of everything Apple did with iOS 26 (seriously, what is going on with Liquid Glass), but I’m pretty impressed with the features mentioned here — and I hope to see them all make their way to Android sooner rather than later.