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Some iOS 17 Features Will Look Very Familiar to Android Fans

Apple’s next iPhone update gains some familiar features that should improve the phone calling experience.

Apple wants to make screening phone calls, dictating text messages and receiving audio messages easier in iOS 17. For Google Pixel fans, that should sound very familiar. 

At its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Apple demonstrated a bevy of new features arriving on iPhones this fall. While the new live photo stickers and stylized «posters» for contact photos may have grabbed headlines, Apple also previewed a handful of features that were reminiscent of Google’s Pixel devices. Like Google, Apple is infusing more audio transcription and speech recognition into its phone and messaging apps. 

Their approaches may differ, but Apple and Google clearly have the same goal: to modernize and improve the calling and texting experience. Communication, along with personalization, has been a major theme throughout both iOS 17 and Google’s recent Pixel updates. (Remember those new cinematic wallpapers for Pixel devices Google flaunted at its I/O conference last month?)

Apple’s iOS 17 shares some other similarities with recent Google products, such as its new StandBy Mode, which essentially turns your iPhone into a smart display. Apple also added the ability to download offline maps to its navigation app, which Google Maps has had for years. (However, this functionality has technically been available on the iPhone previously through the iOS version of the Google Maps app.)

Here’s a look at some new features in iOS 17 that feel similar to what we’ve seen from Google in recent years.

Live voicemail

And iPhone with a Live Voicemail transcription And iPhone with a Live Voicemail transcription

Live Voicemail lets you preview a transcription in realtime as a voicemail is being recorded.

Apple

With iOS 17, you’ll be able to see transcriptions of voicemails in real time, enabling you to pick up if it’s important. Spam calls will be automatically declined and won’t show as transcripts. While it may not be exactly the same, it sounds a lot like Google’s Call Screen feature, which has the Google Assistant screen your calls for you before answering the phone. It’s one of many phone call-oriented features Google added to its Pixel devices over the years, including Hold For Me and Direct My Call. The former has the Google Assistant wait on hold for you when calling certain businesses, while the latter helps you navigate automated phone menus.

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Watch this: Apple iOS 17: Every New Feature (Supercut)

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Audio message transcriptions

A screenshot showing a transcribed audio message in iOS 17 A screenshot showing a transcribed audio message in iOS 17

You’ll see transcriptions of audio messages in iOS 17.

Apple (screenshot)

It’s not always appropriate to listen to voice messages right away. Maybe you’re in public and don’t have your headphones, or perhaps you’re in the middle of a meeting. Apple wants to address this in iOS 17 with support for audio message transcription, which displays the text in line underneath the audio file in a messaging thread. Message transcriptions was also a key feature that Google highlighted when announcing the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro last year.

Better voice dictation for texting

A screenshot of voice typing in Apple's messaging app A screenshot of voice typing in Apple's messaging app

Apple says voice typing is improving in iOS 17.

Apple (screenshot)

When Google announced the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, the first phones to run on its Tensor processor, it noted that the phones would have better speech recognition when dictating messages with the Google Assistant. Apple made a similar announcement during WWDC, saying that dictation in its Messages app should be more accurate because it now uses an improved speech recognition model. 

StandBy mode

An iPhone with its Standby screen active An iPhone with its Standby screen active

iOS 17 adds an attractive screen that shows photos, widgets and info when your iPhone is charging.

Apple

One of the more intriguing new features in iOS 17 is StandBy mode, which allows your iPhone to double as a smart display when it’s in landscape mode and charging. When in this mode, your phone can display the time, photos, widgets, notifications and Live Activities, which show real-time updates from time sensitive apps on the lock screen. 

While it may sound very similar to the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max’s always-on display, the content is stylized to make it look more like a bedside clock or a smart display. Clock faces are colorful and can occupy the whole screen, for example. It feels like a hybrid between the iPhone 14 Pro’s always-on display and the Apple Watch’s nightstand mode.

Google’s execution is a bit different, but it’s accomplishing the same goal with its new Pixel Tablet. Google’s tablet is designed to be a cross between a general-purpose tablet and a smart home hub. Google leans into this approach more fully by including a charging dock that doubles as a speaker in the box, enabling the interface to change automatically when docked.  

Taken together, these updates suggest that phones are getting more personalized, whether that’s by transcribing calls or providing more customizations. And based on Apple’s WWDC keynote and Google’s recent Pixel updates, it seems like that will continue to be true whether you prefer the iPhone or Android. 

Technologies

Google’s New AI Features Are Trying to Make Data Entry a Thing of the Past

More Gemini AI features will come to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.

The latest batch of Google updates to its workspace tools highlights AI’s promise to automate mundanity in the workplace. Google Docs, Slides, Sheets and Drive all have new AI-powered features, the company announced Tuesday. The one thing all these updates have in common? Gemini is using your files, emails and chats to give you relevant information, not random answers gleaned from the web.

These updates come as AI is playing a bigger role in our work lives, for better or worse. Agentic tools like Claude Cowork and coding assistants like Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex are more capable than chatbots and able to handle tasks announced independently. AI tools are also becoming more customized, with Google’s personalized intelligence rolling out across its platforms to help refine AI outputs to things that are relevant and useful for you. Google continues that trend with this new batch of Workspace updates.

New Gemini AI features in Google Workspace apps will cite their sources after each query. For example, if you ask Gemini in Google Docs to fill out an itinerary template, it will pull the information from your email, chats and files. The «sources» tab in the Gemini side panel will show you where it found the information it used, like your flight confirmation email and chats discussing dinner plans. Seeing where Gemini pulled its answers from is also how you’ll double-check Gemini’s work.

The most impressive new features are in Sheets, where AI can fill in the holes in your spreadsheets. You can describe what you want the AI to do with a simple prompt and avoid writing an exact formula. You can click on an empty cell, select the pop-up that says «Drag to fill with Gemini,» then highlight the cells you want Gemini to fill in. That deploys an AI agent to search the web to fill each cell with the necessary information.

For example, if you have a spreadsheet of the contact info for local companies, you can have Gemini search the web to fill in a the location, CEO and other publicly available information of each company. The tool aims to dramatically reduce the time needed for manual data entry. Gemini can also summarize, categorize and create charts with prompts alone.

You can also chat with Gemini in Sheets and have it scour your raw data to make custom reports and charts. No need for pivot tables if they confound you as much as they baffle me. One of the biggest uses of AI at work is helping create presentations.

In Google Slides, you can now tell Gemini in natural language what you want to appear on a slide, and it will create it, matching the style of your existing slides. You can also ask Gemini to edit your slides if you don’t want to waste time painstakingly moving design elements around the slide. The AI should fill the slides with relevant information based on your instructions and the work files it has access to, so you shouldn’t need to replace a bunch of filler text.

If you use Docs, Sheets and Slides through the Workspace account of your company, then you won’t be able to turn off AI features individually. The managing company is in control of AI access for users. Personal users can tweak their settings to limit Gemini. The new features are rolling out in beta now, in English only, to Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers in the US, as well as some Google Workspace customers who are part of the Gemini Alpha testing program.

For more, check out the new cowork feature in Copilot and how to use Perplexity AI for deep research.

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Nintendo Switches Lanes, Sues US Over Tariffs

Mario wants his money back.

Tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump were struck down by the Supreme Court last month. Companies that were subjected to those fees, such as FedEx and Dollar General, have since sued the federal government, and Nintendo wants a piece of the action. 

Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the federal government in the US Court of International Trade on Friday, as first spotted by Aftermath. The complaint seeks refunds of tariffs Nintendo paid, plus interest, and asks the court to declare the tariffs unlawful and stop the government from collecting them going forward. 

«Since February 1, 2025, President Trump has executed the unlawful Executive Orders, imposing tariffs on imports from a vast swath of countries,» Nintendo said in the complaint. 

When reached for comment, Nintendo of America confirmed the lawsuit. 

«We can confirm that we filed a request. We have nothing else to share on this topic,» Nintendo of America said in an emailed statement on Friday, March 6. 

It’s unclear how much Nintendo paid in tariffs, and it did not state an amount in the lawsuit. While the Switch 2 was priced at $450 when it launched last year, and has stayed at that amount, Nintendo did increase the price of the original Switch and accessories for both consoles. Microsoft and Sony also increased the prices of their hardware and accessories last year due to tariffs. 

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

On Feb. 20, the Supreme Court ruled by a vote of 6 to 3 that the sweeping tariffs Trump instituted last year exceeded his executive powers. Following the ruling, on the same day, Trump announced a new set of tariffs of 10% on imported goods that would last for 150 days, starting Feb. 24. 

The decision on what to do with the collected tariffs — a reported $166 billion —  has been left to the US Court of International Trade. Judge Richard Eaton told the US Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday, March 4, to refund the importers that were forced to pay tariffs, which is more than 330,000. On Friday, the CBP said it couldn’t easily issue tariff refunds because its system requires duties to be recalculated and refunds processed entry by entry. This process would involve tens of millions of transactions. The agency said it’s updating its systems and could start providing refunds by late April. 

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