I’m sure all of you reading this site faithfully love your iPhone and can’t imagine anything better. I find it is definitely integral to my day and I use it for all it can do, from games, remote access, email, calendar, contacts, surfing, GPS, music and podcasts, texting to actually phoning people.
With the 3.0 software and the new hardware, Apple bridged the gulf between other more standard features on competitor phones that they were lacking, such as video, MMS, voice dialing, etc. I think they are going to find it harder to throw more things into this device and keep it slick, simple and easy to use. I do however feel they have a bit of a ways to go before they get there.
Here are 5 features I would like to see up and coming on the future version of the iPhone (in no particular order).
1. Camera on the Front of the iPhone
Type: Hardware and Software
Having a camera on the iPhone is an obvious feature. Having one on the front would enable video calls between camera enabled phones. The first practical use for this would be Skype so that you can [do] video chats. I would see this coming from Apple in an iChat style native app. The burden will be the cell network. Video uses a lot of bandwidth so it would be doubtful with the current infrastructure that cell companies can handle a lot of video calls plus maintain the reliability for phones based apps. Something like this could launch over wi-fi only (like Skype is now) and then expand as the carrier can support it. Probably something like a premium charged service would likely happen. This would be live video chats by the way, not video like messages delivered like voice mail.
2. More Sound Options
Type: Software
I would like to see more native support for changing the ringtones for email especially. I find the dull tone very difficult to hear sometimes and I rely mainly on the vibration to know when I get email. It would be nice if a more audible sound like when you get a text message could be used. On that note, the options for text messages are limited, not sure why.
3. “Single App” Multi-Tasking
Type: Software
How many times have you been playing a game, writing an email or doing something on the phone and get a text message. From a programming point of view, in the iPhone SDK a message is sent to the app that halts it and gives it a chance to do things such as save state or progress so that after leaving the app to answer the text, you can resume from where you left off when you come back in. This is just good design for the iPhone to do this. But often I don’t want to stop to answer the text, I like seeing it but if I hit reply, I have to then go back to where I was, if I hit close I then have to remember to go answer the text, because hitting close removes the “new” and the badge counter on the Messages app. What I would love to see is another option to throw the currently running app into the background. Change the top bar to look the same as it does when you leave a phone call to go to the Home screen. When you do that it flashes green and says “tap to return to the call”. What if something like that can be done for a single app? Apple prohibits background processes because it degrades user experience, but something like this would only allow 1 app to be running. Perhaps it is on a termination timer. But theoretically I could throw the app into the background and launch the Messages app, answer the text, then tap the top bar to jump right back into the app I was running on.
4. Always List the Messages View First When Messaging
Type: Software
I don’t know about you, but how many times have you not noticed the name at the top of the messages app and simply sent something to the wrong person? You can’t blame Apple’s design for this, since it is very clear right up at the top who you are sending the text too, but a lot of the time if you are jumping between messages with different people, or leave the Messages app and go back in, don’t realize the person that is currently selected and send something confusing the wrong person. What I would like is a simple option to always launch Messages in the List view so that you have to pick who you want to type to. If there is only 1 I’m OK with it going to that thread.
5. Recording iPhone Screen Output
Type: Software, Hardware?
We all know Apple can do this because at all the keynotes they demo and have vendors demo their products right up on the big screen. Having the API built to handle this and maybe some kind of hook through iTunes or the Mac OS X itself (or even iTunes) to get video output of the screen would open the door for very high quality product demo videos and tutorials. App reviews will explode and maybe push some more sales. No more would you have to have a dimly lit room and a decent camera focussed on the screen and have to worry about manicures and all of that. There must be some kind of special dev build of the iPhone OS that allows this, making it a core API feature and then providing a product to do this would be a win.
That’s my list for now. I may have more to add later on. I would love to read comments on your thoughts on these features or if you have any yourself.
David Storms is a part time contributor to iPhoneDocked and can be reached at www.davidrstorms.com
