Wish list for iOS 5

Scott Forstall on stage, making a comparison between iPad and iPhone.

Just like their full-size software for Mac computers, Apple’s mobile software iOS is due for an upgrade this summer at their Worldwide Developers Conference. Running on iPhones, iPads, and iPods touch, iOS has become ubiquitous and universal for users and app developers alike. However, as it stands at version 4.3.2, the operating system is far from perfect, and the user community has an ever-expanding laundry list of new features they’d love to see implemented. Below are a few of mine.

Interface Tweaks

Image of a demo iPhone 4 unit running iOS 4.

For all their gradual alterations to both Mac and iOS software, the interface on iPhone has remained surprisingly static since its introduction in 2007. Apps like the Phone dialer, the Weather, Clock, and Stocks widgets haven’t changed one iota in appearance or, in some cases, functionality since version 1.0.1 in June 2007. My suggestion is to do away with the drab pale blue titlebar permeating every Apple-provided application and replace it with something fresh—perhaps even customizable—or at least something like the gray seen in iPad. As for Clock—why can’t its home screen icon display the actual time, just as the Calendar app displays the date? And Weather—how about that little “73” updates to the actual temperature, saving users a click or two? Both these improvements would take a stab at the useful widget functionality on Android.

Speaking of the home screen, it could use a bit of an overhaul. Why clutter up your gorgeous wallpapers with dozens of apps? How about allowing blank spaces here and there, before the last app on the page and in between apps, freeing up some room for the backdrop? It’s trivial, but would go a long way towards true customization of the home screen. There’s more on the home screen, specifically the panel currently used for Search, but I’ll come to that in a moment.

Syncing

One of the primary advantages Android has over Apple’s devices, as I see it, is the ability to sync contacts, calendars, and mail with Google’s servers for free. Apple does offer a solution, MobileMe, for $99/year. However, MobileMe involves a whole host of features to justify its price point, including web storage (iDisk), remote system access (Back To My Mac), domain space compatible with iWeb, and an email account with an @me.com suffix. Not everyone needs all these features, and recently Apple allowed anyone with an Apple ID—necessary to access the iTunes or App Stores and held by millions of customers—to make use of one of MobileMe’s most sought-after features, Find My iPhone, for free. Why not continue offering the webmail account, web storage, et cetera for a premium, and give iOS Apple ID users contact and calendar syncing for free? It’s an easy way to keep up with Android, and Apple’s construction of a billion-dollar data center suggests that something like this may be on the horizon.

In addition, wireless syncing of iTunes content—if not larger files like TV shows and movies, at the very least songs and ebooks—over a local WiFi or Bluetooth connection would be fantastic. In fact, allowing users to access their iTunes content through the cloud instead of syncing at all would be incredible—perhaps in conjunction with an Apple TV–like streaming iPod or iPad hardware with small or no hard storage at all. Think of it: a $100 iPod touch with no built-in storage and a streaming account with iTunes Cloud. People would eat it up.

iPhoto

Apple has recently introduced iMovie and GarageBand, two apps traditionally associated with their iLife suite of Mac software, in iOS versions for iPhone and iPad. The two apps are each $5 from the App Store, and have presumably been a success. However, iLife’s most popular member and the only of its collection I make use of on a daily basis, iPhoto, has been left out of the equation. What gives?

My theory is that iOS’s existing Photos app, currently only a browser and sending solution without editing abilities, could be called iPhoto in version 5. It’s already possible to browse pictures in Faces and Places modes, so it would make sense to add rudimentary editing capabilities—color effects, red eye removal, et cetera—to the mobile app. The app’s current duplicity of function with the Camera app, which allows you to browse past photos already and essentially renders the Photos app unnecessary, could suggest that this change is in the pipeline.

Notifications

Ah, the notifications issue. Every iPhone and iPad user has a bone to pick with the zillions of notification bubbles which all too often interrupt their work by appearing onscreen and requiring immediate action, and each has a different idea on how to fix it. Android’s solution of relegating everything to its menubar at top, while effective, is too cluttered and confusing to blend well with iOS. My idea is, I think, elegant enough to fit well into existing iOS use paradigms.

A new notification would appear at top, much like in Android, highlighting the menu bar much like a background telephone call does now. Double-tapping the home button, in addition to bringing up the multitasking bar at the bottom, would also present users with a list of notifications, stacking up over time and taking up the upper three fourths of the screen. In addition, the Search field at left of the home screen is currently too toothless and boring to be of much use to anyone. Perhaps here, too, could live a list of notifications. This solution would prove unobtrusive and easily understood.

A similar solution for iOS notifications, currently available through jailbreaking.

These final two are Android features I’d love to see brought into iOS. The first is turn-by-turn navigation built into the existing Maps application. There are already available some commercial apps on the App Store, running $50 a pop—and some with monthly plans that would cost hundreds of dollars over time. There’s really no excuse for Apple not to incorporate its own solution, and I sincerely hope they decide to. Also in Android is the feature of voice functionality being built into the keyboard, rendering literally every text field in any app or web page as voice-enabled. Even as an accessibility feature, it’s something I’d love to see included in the next version of iOS.

These are my ideas to improve or fix Apple’s blockbuster mobile software. If you have any additional ideas, or take issue with any of mine, I encourage you to tell me about them in the comments below.