I think the promise of new emoji is often a compelling reason for people to update.
A few features I’ve found particularly impactful in recent updates, which do feel like they require a deeper change than just an app are:
- translate button on selected text (and the translation works sufficiently well)
- OCR + selection of text in images, automatic OCR and indexing of text in photos
- oftentimes if you select something in some units, you can select the text and see a conversion to other units (though it is a bit fussy about what it accepts, e.g. it doesn’t like 5’, 5’1, 5’2”, 5lb 3oz, but it is ok with 5lb, $1, 1$, or USD 1)
- Emoji are an app update away. Assuming your app is using the appcompat library in Android (it is almost certainly) you'll get all of the emoji the next time you auto update your dependencies. The latest version of this library works from Android 4.4 to Android 14.
- The translate button has been in Android for ages but it's using the standard context menu API. Not many apps use it and very few users care, but it's there. Very useful for sending a bit of text over KDE connect!
- OCR + text selection was brought to my phone by a Google Pixel Launcher update. I didn't even notice it until I accidentally selected text from the task switcher.
- I have no idea why OCR is not in Photos yet, I guess the Lens button is good enough for Google, which has worked for years now.
- I guess I don't have unit conversion built into my phone? I could probably install an app that does it from the context menu but I can't say I care. That's what Google Assistant is built into Android for.
None of these features require an operating system update on Android. They're often released around/after a new major Android release, but that's just Google's release schedule. Apple could probably apply these updates through the app store as well if they bothered, but they prefer collecting updates for a year and releasing the as new features all at once.
A few features I’ve found particularly impactful in recent updates, which do feel like they require a deeper change than just an app are:
- translate button on selected text (and the translation works sufficiently well)
- OCR + selection of text in images, automatic OCR and indexing of text in photos
- oftentimes if you select something in some units, you can select the text and see a conversion to other units (though it is a bit fussy about what it accepts, e.g. it doesn’t like 5’, 5’1, 5’2”, 5lb 3oz, but it is ok with 5lb, $1, 1$, or USD 1)