For almost two decades, smartphones have worked practically the same, whether an Apple iPhone or a smartphone with Google’s Android system: you have a colorful application grid that plays to open. But this year, Apple and Google are finally taking different paths.
Apple’s next operating system, iOS 26, which arrives in this fall, includes a transparent aesthetics that mimics the glass, making apps and buttons mix with the screen content. Google is doing the opposite with its newly released system, Android 16, which emphasizes more vibrant and striking colors.
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These are just cosmetic changes that can represent the beginning of a larger division between iOS and Android. Google is also investing strongly in the integration of Gemini, its AI chatbot, to automate tasks such as writing emails, editing photos and creating shopping lists. In contrast, Apple has launched a small set of AI resources and postponed the premiere of a reformulated version of Siri because of technical challenges, focusing on making its software interface more beautiful.
What this means to you, consumer, is that your technological experience can vary dramatically depending on the type of cell phone you buy in the coming years. With Google diving deep into AI, Android users will have mobile phones that explore their data to perform many tasks – but if they will like it is still an open issue. Iphone users will have visually pleasant software with an extra finish, which is more of the same.
Here are the highlights of what will change in our smartphones with the imminent arrival of iOS 26 and Android 16.
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IPhone apps are disappearing, and Android is getting more vibrant
When Apple revealed iOS 26-adopting a new fiscal year-year numbering scheme on which it will be available-at a software conference last month, it announced a new interface called Liquid Glass, referring to a translucent aesthetics that mimics glass. For example, an app or button icon can change its appearance to adapt to the lighting and color of the photo behind it. Apple is also applying this glass aesthetics to other devices, such as iPads and Macs, to make the experience more consistent in its ecosystem.
In contrast, at Google’s software conference in May, the company revealed the new Android 16 design, called Material 3 EXPRESSIVE, which makes your mobile phone look like a pop art. You can choose a color theme to change the overall look of the interface – a purple theme includes pink app windows, plum text and dark violet buttons, for example. Google said the goal is to create a greater emotional connection of users with Android.
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However, these design reformulations seem a distraction from the true transformation that is happening in our cell phones, driven by AI.
Google tries to make Gemini the Android killer app
Like its predecessor, Android 16 brings Gemini, with which users can interact by voice or text to facilitate tasks on their mobile phone.
In recent years, Google has expanded Gemini to control various software, including its notes, Google Maps and YouTube app. Chatbot is based on general artificial intelligence, technology that uses complex language models to predict which words belong together.
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This allows Android users to hold the phone’s power button to call the gemini and talk to the microphone to ask for things like:
- Generate a Guacamole shopping list in the notes app.
- Consult how long it takes to walk to a local cinema.
- Generate a list of ingredients from a culinary video that are watching on YouTube.
In other words, although the most striking part of Android 16 is its colorful interface, the true driving force of Android is proving to Gemini.
Apple is still running after Ia
In iOS 26, Apple is expanding its AI, called Apple Intelligence, which debuted last year, with new features like automatic language translation and the ability to search the web using a screen capture data – tools that Android users have had for some time.
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Real -time translations can work within some Apple communication apps, such as messages and facetime. In a facetime call with a relative speaking your native language, for example, you can see a caption translated into a balloon on the screen. (Google launched a similar tool in 2021.)
The new iPhone software also uses it to facilitate tasks with information from a screen capture. For example, if you make a screen capture of a website and time for a show, a suggestion will appear to add the event to your calendar. Or if you make a screen capture of a bag you are looking for, you can touch a button to search the web by similar bags. (This is similar to Google’s Circle to Search tool, which allows Android users to draw circles on objects to make image search. Many users consider the function a trick as it is rarely useful.)
As for Siri, Apple should launch a reformulated version of the virtual assistant with IA to rival Google Gemini this spring, but the plans were postponed indefinitely after internal tests show that she misses almost a third of orders. For now, users can talk to traditional Siri and redirect some requests for the popular OpenAi Chatbot Chatgpt.
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(O New York Times It sued OpenAi and its partner Microsoft, alleging violation of copyright of journalistic content related to AI systems. The two companies denied the accusations.)
What all this means
All large consumer technology companies are redesigning their products to include new AI technologies in the software we use daily, and all these tools still make many mistakes.
In other words, there is no hurry to enter this wave. But at this rate, Android users will try before iPhone owners as it is to have an AI cell phone – a device that uses your apps for you.
c.2025 The New York Times Company
