Headline Apple’s spate of updates at its annual conference yesterday was news of the ‘App Library’.
Part of the new iOS 14 update, the new feature will automatically organise apps on the home screen of iPhone users, cutting out some of the endless scrolling that comes with trying to find certain apps.
The App Library is located at the end of the Home Screen, though users can choose how many Home Screen pages to display and can hide pages for quicker access.
It’s a feature that will no doubt make life easier for the millions of iPhone users around the world.
And it’s also a feature that already exists on Android systems.
Ask any Android user what they think of the App Library, and they’ll likely tell you home screen widgets – which are very similar to the App Library – have been around for close to a decade.
As expected, many Android users took to social media to point out this fact.
https://twitter.com/takaharasuiko/status/1275233645825888256
iPhone users flexing on something us android users been flexing for years #iPhonesucks #iPhoneVsAndroid pic.twitter.com/BKchNUWvzW
— Jigar Mehta (@IJM94) June 23, 2020
But for Apple, it’s actually a case of back to the future.
Footage has emerged of Steve Jobs demonstrating widgets (and explaining what Wikipedia is) way back in 2005 – before the first Android had even been built.
You can see it here.
I know there's a lot of "Apple copied Android Widgets" comments running around but Apple widgets actually date back to dashboard on Mac.
Here's a clip of Steve Jobs demoing them off back in 2005. 3 Years before the first Android 😎 pic.twitter.com/u0WK3RqffO
— Jonathan Morrison 🙋🏻♂️ (@jonxfriends) June 23, 2020
