These iOS 18 Features Make Switching From Android to iPhone Easier

Two years ago, I made a controversial decision. After more than a decade of touting my beloved Samsung Galaxy devices, I swallowed my pride and switched to the iPhone 14 Pro. 

My choice was driven by a number of factors, including the ability to AirDrop photos and files, easily FaceTime my family and friends and, most importantly, take advantage of iMessage and no longer be bullied for “turning texts green.” In the process, I had to give up some of my favorite features like a customized home screen and Object eraser for photos. But thankfully, I didn’t have to sacrifice other features like the Always-On display and lock screen widgets, which made saying goodbye to my beloved Galaxy S10 Plus a little easier. 

Since then, Apple has debuted the iPhone 16 lineup and iOS 18, which adds features including customizable home screens (sound familiar?), Messages via satellite and RCS support, helping to bridge the gap between iPhones and Android phones. It’s also rolled out Apple Intelligence, the iPhone maker’s suite of on-device AI to compete with similar offerings from Google and Samsung. 

While making the leap from an Android phone to an iPhone (or vice versa) can be a big change, the fact is both camps have been increasingly, shall we say, “borrowing” features from one another, while also learning to play nice – the addition of RCS messaging on iOS 18 being the biggest recent example. 

I’ve been using the iPhone 16 Pro Max for over a month now to check out firsthand Apple’s latest hardware, software and AI offerings. Both the Android operating system (which I continue to use on the Pixel 9 Pro XL and Galaxy S24 Ultra) and iOS each have their own attributes and strengths. But if you’re thinking about making the leap to the iPhone 16 lineup or another iOS 18-compatible device, that adjustment should be even smoother than when I first switched over, thanks to the iPhone’s wider range of customization options, more versatile messaging and expanded photo editing features. 

Here are a few key iOS updates that can help make your transition from an Android phone to an iPhone a bit more seamless – and add a hint of familiarity along the way. 

Customized home and lock screens

At long last, you can now customize the look and feel of your iPhone’s home screen with iOS 18. That means you can arrange app icons however you’d like, whether that’s placing them around the edge of your screen or along one side or whatever other arrangement your heart desires. (This is helpful if you don’t want to obscure your phone wallpaper.) This mirrors what you can do on an Android device, so if you’re making the leap to iPhone, you’ll still have the freedom to create the layout that best suits you (and even add widgets).

You can also switch those app icons to dark mode, or select the Tinted option and choose your own color for greater personalization. To do this, long press on your phone’s screen, then tap Edit in the upper left corner and hit Customize. It’s been a long time coming, but I’m glad this feature has finally arrived on iPhones. I’m a huge dark mode fan, so I’m glad I could bring that setting to my iPhone’s home screen. 

And if you want to make your app icons bigger, you can now do that too. This will also remove the app name, cleaning up the appearance of your home screen a bit.

Apple also added the ability to customize your lock screen controls, so if you’d rather swap out the flashlight shortcut for, say, the timer, you can do that. To do so, long press on your lock screen, hit Customize at the bottom, then tap Lock Screen. Now you can swap out whatever controls you’d like. Personally, I appreciate having the default camera and flashlight controls on my lock screen (even if I accidentally trigger the flashlight embarrassingly often), so I didn’t mess with that. But it’s good to know you can tailor that however you’d like or remove those shortcut controls altogether. 

Messaging gets smarter – and more inclusive

This is the feature I have been waiting for: RCS support. 

RCS, which stands for Rich Communication Services, replaces SMS and brings features like read receipts, typing indicators and high-resolution media sharing across Android phones and iPhones (no more grainy, microscopic pictures and videos!). You can also send a wider range of emoji reactions to messages, making the texting experience more versatile and…more like chatting with someone else on iMessage. 

While Apple’s adoption of this messaging standard won’t prevent texts from Android users appearing green on an iPhone, it will make messaging across platforms feel less archaic. You won’t get full iMessage perks, though. For instance, you can’t unsend or edit a message to someone on an Android phone, and, again, messages from an Android user will still appear green. RCS messages also aren’t end-to-end encrypted. But at least there’s less ground for iPhone users to give Android users a hard time about “ruining” texting. (If you’re switching to an iPhone, remember to play nice with your former Android comrades!)

As a writer, I’m not a huge fan of using AI to alter my words, but I had to try out the new Apple Intelligence-powered writing tool in iMessage to see how it performed. I drafted a text to my colleague Jessica Fierro asking her if she was excited about the Wicked movie, considering all the online discourse, and I saw how it translated my original text into something more “Friendly,” “Professional” and “Concise.” The Professional response was, not surprisingly, a bit stiff for the topic at hand, but overall it’s neat to have all those options, if you need help drafting something in a specific tone. 

Google and Samsung have debuted their own AI-powered tools to help you draft a text message or email. Like the iPhone, Pixel and Galaxy devices have the option to select a writing style that best suits your desired tone. Magic Compose on the Pixel, for instance, lets you choose from “Formal,” “Chill” or even “Shakespeare,” if you’d like something a little poetic and playful. (We can’t say AI doesn’t know how to have some fun.) And Samsung adds the impressive perk of easily translating text messages with a couple of taps, thanks to AI. You can translate any iMessage, SMS or RCS messages on the iPhone by long-pressing them and choosing Translate from the pop-up menu.

Photo editing finally gets this one key tool

A feature I was perhaps most sorry to part with when I made the switch to an iPhone was Object eraser on my Samsung Galaxy device, which lets you easily remove any distractions or photobombers cluttering your image. (A similar feature exists on Pixel phones called Magic Eraser.) That’s why I was thrilled when Apple rolled out its Clean Up tool with iOS 18, which also lets you remove distractions from photos with a few taps. 

When you find an image you’d like to edit in the Photos app, tap on the three lines in the center right, below your image. Then tap Clean Up. From there, you can tap on or circle whatever you’d like to remove, and it’ll disappear. (I’d like to assure you I’m not as coldhearted as I may come off in sharing my excitement for this feature and tend to use it simply to remove people in the background who unknowingly crowd my shot.) It’s not perfect, as you may still notice some spots that seem warped after you’ve altered an image, but it sure is a huge help.

Clean Up on iPhone isn’t as advanced as Google’s Magic Editor tool, which takes things to a whole new level. With that, you can move someone to a different part of the photo or alter a cloudy background into a sunny one, with the help of generative AI. Perhaps it’ll be only a matter of time until we see those kinds of advanced features on the iPhone, too.

Another photo perk: Better search

Another way in which the iPhone has started to match the AI prowess of Google’s Gemini is with more advanced photo search. 

Earlier this year, Google debuted Ask Photos, which helps you sift through images and videos in the Photos app by making inquiries like “Show me the best photo from each national park I’ve visited.” You can also ask more contextual questions like “What’s my license plate number?” or “When does my voucher expire?” and it’ll surface that information. There’s also a new app called Pixel Screenshots that lets you ask questions about screenshots on your phone so you can quickly find information like a Wi-Fi password or address.

Apple, too, has made the process of filtering through your many photos smarter. When tapping on the search icon in Photos, you can request to see “Trips in 2024” or “San Francisco in the fall” to pull up images from a specific time and place. You can also filter out screenshots and receipts to help you focus on actual photos in your camera roll. That said, Google’s Ask Photos tool is still a step ahead, as it can help you cherry-pick the best images from your trip or answer questions about the theme of someone’s birthday party, for example. 

But Apple still has some advanced photo features up its sleeve once it rolls out its next batch of Apple Intelligence features with iOS 18.2 in December. When that happens, the iPhone’s Camera Control button, which currently operates as another way to trigger the camera, snap photos and change settings on the fly, will double as a means of launching Apple’s Visual Intelligence feature. Similar to Google Lens, this can help identify objects and places around you, like the breed of a dog or the hours of a restaurant up ahead. You can also snap a picture of a poster promoting an event and have the details added to your calendar. (You can currently access Visual Intelligence in the iOS 18.2 public beta.) That’s one more familiar feature for users of Google’s products and services that’s getting the Apple treatment. 

Voice memo transcriptions

This is a more niche feature but still one I’m psyched for. As a journalist, writer and brainstormer who likes to speak some of my ideas aloud, I rely pretty heavily on voice memos. I tend to reach for my Pixel phone for this task because it does a great job transcribing recordings, but now I can also count on my iPhone to do the same. 

To find the transcription option, open the Voice Memos app, tap on the waveform icon on the bottom left of a recording, then hit the quotation marks icon on the bottom left of the following screen. Now you’ll see a text rendition of that spoken word, complete with a handy search feature to pinpoint specific words.

Another neat new feature from Apple is call recordings and transcriptions. When you’re on a phone call or FaceTime audio call, you’ll see a waveform symbol in the top left corner that you can tap to record the conversation. (An automated voice will inform everyone that this is happening.) This feature works whether you’re talking to someone on an Android phone or iPhone.

After the call, you can go to Notes to find the recording, as well as a transcription. If you have an iPhone compatible with Apple Intelligence (an iPhone 15 Pro model or iPhone 16 model), or if your Notes app is synced to a device that supports Apple Intelligence, you can also check out an AI-generated summary of the call by tapping Summary at the top of the recording. 

Samsung has noted the existence of a similar call recording feature, but it appears to be dependent on the location and device (it’s not available in the US). Apple, meanwhile, offers call recording across iOS 18-compatible devices.

Bonus fact: Pixel has a neat future named Call Screen, which will inform you of who’s calling and what they want, so you can decide whether to pick up. You can set this to screen all unknown numbers or suspicious calls and to decline spam. Google Assistant will communicate with the caller to gauge what they’re up to, and you can see a live transcript of that conversation. You can then decide whether to pick up the call or hang up, or even ask for more information. 

Samsung has something similar with the help of its Bixby assistant, which will also ask why a caller is trying to reach you and show you their responses in a text chat. 

Final thoughts 

iOS 18 and Apple Intelligence have introduced some neat features that make everything from messaging to photo editing to customization on the iPhone a lot easier – and somewhat similar to what you may be used to on your Android device. And while it’s tempting to play the “Apple/Android did it first” game, I’m personally always happy to see more shared capabilities across the two camps – a great feature is a great feature, and everyone should have access to it, in my book. And as Apple, Google and Samsung race to bring the latest AI-powered features to the palms of our hands, that Apple/Android divide will likely get blurrier, which I certainly don’t see as a bad thing. 

And now, if you’re looking to easily transfer your data from your Android phone to your iPhone, you’ll want to take advantage of Apple’s Move to iOS app, which lets you transfer contacts, message history, calendars, photos, videos and more. (And if you’re looking to make the opposite move, from an iPhone to an Android, we have a guide for that, too.)