Monday, June 6, 2011

My iOS5 Wishlist

I've been meaning to post this wish list for the past couple weeks. Since today is the start of WWDC 2011, figured I'd hammer it out before anything is officially announced lol. I've see other people's hopes for the next iteration of iOS, but none of them were the same as mine. Some of the lists were unrealistic, and not likely to be implemented, judging from the type of company Apple is. I believe my list to be a compilation of reasonable features - the logical progression to a still-developing, yet already stellar platform.

Social Network Integration
I would like to see a default option for Twitter, Facebook, AIM, etc. In Preferences, the user would set their preferred clients (i.e. - Echofon, Twitter, TwitBird). From any app, when the user long presses the screen, more options would come up, in the same manner as Select/ Copy/ Paste now, giving the options to Tweet, Post to Facebook, IM, or blog.

More AirPlay Support
I want apps like HBO GO, Xfinity, and ABC Player to support AirPlay. I think this is more likely to happen than HDMI out capabilities in iOS. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Apple is not interested in people using their iPhones to replace AppleTV; they'd rather sell you both, and give them the ability to talk to each other.

Player for Downloaded Media
Presently, when someone emails me an audio file, I have to find that message every time I want to listen to it. Same thing if I listen to a file from a website - I have to visit that site every time I wanna hear the the track. I would love the ability to import to iTunes directly from the device, but I don't think that'll happen. As an alternative, Apple could implement a separate player for all downloaded media. It could be an extension to Safari that holds all media files, compiles them into a list, and makes them readily accessible whenever the user wants to watch or listen. I am presently experimenting with replacing my laptop with my iPad. I haven't used my MacBook for anything in the past 2 months for anything except software updates and sometimes charging my iOS devices. I occasionally download mixtapes not available in iTunes. In these cases, I have to use my computer to sync. By implementing this feature, they would reduce my dependency THAT much more lol. Which leads me to

OTA Updates
It would make updating so much easier than having to reinstall the entire OS every time. I'm not sure if Apple would implement this because of the inherent security (i.e. recapturing jailbroken devices) in doing a full OS install. Would be nice though.

More SMS/ text input features
  • Rich text - this could be expanded to Mail as well. I would love to be able to say "I" instead of "EYE" to emphasize myself in the first person. I always thought BBM was cool, and wished iOS had something similar.
  • Native URL shortener - definitely would come in handy in staying under the 160-character SMS limitation. SMS would automatically sense hyperlinks in text, then connect to a shortening service in the background while the user is typing (configurable in Preferences as well), and replace the longer URL with the shortened one. 
  • Ergonomic iPad keyboard. I've seen some on Cydia, but none like I imagine. I want one that is curved to accommodate my natural hand position on the keyboard.
I think these few changes will make iOS an even more attractive platform. Can't wait to see what actually happens!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad