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After watching the complete Google I/O keynote and WWDC '10 keynote, even I have to admit that Android (Froyo) has left iOS behind on features. Articles like [these][1] might say that Apple has given a solid reply, but I don't think they have. When I see features like Android's cloud-to-phone messaging APIs, I long for them to be in iOS. But then iOS 4 has nothing of this sort. Froyo also has APIs to make app data searchable, which iOS 4 doesn't for non-Apple apps. And these are just a few things that looking back at it now makes iOS 4 just seem so much weaker. Gingerbread will be out in October if I believe Engadget, and that will pull Android further away from iOS. People can talk about fragmentation — which will become less of an issue with Gingerbread, and the fact that users don't care about such features. But developers do. If Apple falls behind on features that developers want, the App Store numbers they like to tout to loudly will stop growing so rapidly.
To be honest, as a user, iOS 4 adds nothing that truly stands out as "THIS is why I must have the iPhone" except for Facetime and the Retina Display. Being a long time Apple loyalist and enthusiast, it both worries and saddens me to see Apple so blatantly miss the boat. So my question is, has Apple dropped the ball after a solid start and fallen behind so much that the trickle of developers will slowly become a full flow which they won't be able to stop?
[1]: www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/06/08/apples-ios-wwdc-strikes-back-after-googles-android-io/