Old Wine in New Bottle: Top New iPhone 4S Apps Already Exist in Android Phones

Apple’s iPhone 4S, which went on sale Friday instead of an iPhone 5, has let down most of the expectations built up for it.

The smartphone fails not just in terms of innovative design, but also its new features, which are not that exciting. Android phone users have already been using the bulk of them.

The new iOS5 OS that powers the iPhone 4S has lifted most of its 200 features to match up with the fast-growing Android platform. Siri is the only outstanding app that elevates the iPhone's position in the smartphone arena. But this voice-activated personal assistant doesn’t work well for the customers outside the U.S.

Let’s have a look at the new features in the iPhone 4S, which already exist in Android phones:

Dictate Text:

The Siri app comes with a mic icon on the keyboard, which speaks the text to the phone. Google introduced the voice-enabled keyboard in its Android 2.1 version, which works in the same way. With Handcent SMS, you can dictate a reply to any SMS and with Google Voice Search application pre-installed in Android devices, users have access to features like “search by voice” and Voice Action like “Navigate to.”

Notification Center:

This aggregates several app alerts and it brings together the entire store of email, calendar events, texts, friend requests, breaking news and more at one place, which you can access just by swiping your finger from top to bottom. Android users are familiar with the Notifications appearing at the top bar showing time, Bluetooth, battery state, network conditions, GPS and other icons. The users get the notification for call, tweet and Facebook message at the top of the screen.

Dual-Core Processor:

Apple has powered the iPhone 4S with the dual-core A5 chip that powers the iPad 2. Android powered Motorola Atrix and LG Optimus 2X have already used dual-core chip from a tablet, Nvidia Tegra 2, for high speed performance. Galaxy S2 and Droid Bionic sport dual-core powers as well.

8MP camera:

8MP sensors and HD capture are standard camera features these days. Several Android phones including Samsung galaxy S2, HTC Thunderbolt and Droid Bionic beat the iPhone 4S with their camera fire power.

Cloud Syncing:

With the iCloud app in the iPhone 4S, users can store several data and documents and can stream music files and movies to iPads, iPhones, iPods and personal computers running Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X. Google has been using cloud computing for over 10 years now. The data in Google is stored in the cloud instead of an employee computer.

Newsstand:

iOS 5 brings a new feature Newsstand to the phone, where the users can subscribe to magazines, newspapers and download updates in the background. The background updates and sync have been there in Android for long now.