How can iOS become "exciting" again?

[jeremiah256]

How can iOS become "exciting" again?

If you are a heavy iPad user like I am, you'd find iOS 11 to be very exciting. The additions and changes made were fantastic and I'm using my iPad more and more as my main computing device, only behind my iPhone in terms of screen time.


As an iOS fan, a good portion of iOS's 'excitement' for me comes from Apple adding services third party developers can take advantage of. Almost all the productivity apps I used one version ago are now much more useful with iOS 11. I can't keep up with how much has changed due to iOS 11. And that's very exciting.

 

[Black Tiger]

The last “excitement” was iOS 7 and we are still recovering from many of the bizarre changes that Apple threw in for the sake of a fresh coat of paint. There are still some very strange graphical and interface inconsistencies across the system. There is no clear vision with iOS post-iOS 5, but I do generally like it regardless.
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I did think of one thing that I would like to see, even if it might be unrealistic. I would prefer a design closer to that of iOS 6. I'm still not really a fan of the colorful cartoony icons

I suspect that we are going to see a new direction given that we are approaching the same length of time with this cartoon look as we had with the classic iPhone look. Probably once all of the iPhones go to the iPhone X-style design we will see something better optimized for that design.

 

[TimFL1]

One thing that‘d excite me is Apple opening up the floodgate for customization options so each iPhone can be unique. We‘re slowly getting there with additions like the control center being customizable.
A few examples I can think of:
- Allow us to specify what info we want to see in the status bar (no reason non-X owners have to see the carrier name if they do not run risk of entering roaming by accident)
- A potential dark mode apps can tap into with new APIs, encourage adoption of dark modes in apps via special App store promotions or highlights
- Maybe allow us to change the general hue/color of certain things (think Windows 10 color scheme picker for window borders etc)
- Free grid layout for the home screens (no reason we shouldn‘t be able to have gaps)
- Allow us to disable the home screen dock background or change the opacity of it
- Let us change the lock screen buttons (flashlight/camera)
- Live app icons. They added a way for developers to allow users to change the app icon. They should use that for their native apps: have the weather app represent the local weather (update with the widget update). If it rains it should represent rainy weather and so on. They could go a step further and make it more advanced: have stocks represent the cached graph of the top stock, maps represent a cutout of your location and so on.

These are all things that wouldn‘t really take that much of a redesign to achieve (low hanging fruits).

As for bigger things I‘d love it for notifications to be re-imagined. As it stands they can be pretty annoying. I get a flood of notifications most of the day and they obscure content at the top. No reason we shouldn‘t be able to temporarily mute a notification thread by swiping one away. Or the famous call screen preventing you from doing what you do... horrible when you have a persistent caller.

 

[JediZenMaster]

I don’t know if it can be “exciting” anymore. I feel like Mobile operating systems are starting to hit a wall.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing that it’s not exciting but we’re getting to the point where unless they overhaul the OS completely that we won’t see any huge changes at least not until the AR headset comes out and the phone becomes more of a hub to the spoke devices.

 

[naasrd]

How can iOS become "exciting" again?

When you unlock your phone and look forward to some killer feature that’s been recently introduced instead of opening it and dreading the growing army of bugs that will ruin your user experience.

 

[Deeds500]

IMO ios4 remains the most exciting OS update to date. It was the OS which introduced folders for apps, amongst other things. For the first time we could group apps with similar like features together. Extremely useful and not gimmicky at all. And it's something we all take for granted today.

That's what I'm hoping for in ios12. Something new and significant, which will add to the experience but not be gimmicky and/or of little use. Yes I want stability and a buttery smooth UI, but I think the OS is due for it's next ios4-like update.

With regards to the little things, what I would like to see are:

Dark mode. Waiting for the day a class action against Apple is filed for eyestrain, blindness or partial loss of vision.

Get rid of the 10% and 20% battery warning indicators after you have plugged your charger into your phone. I can understand the need for them when the battery is draining, but why have them pop up after I have plugged in the charger and its counted up to 10%? Extremely annoying especially when I'm watching a stream and the stream stops because my phone is warning me that my battery is back up to 10% again. Seriously.

Get rid of the volume bar which is smack bang in the middle of the screen when you toggle the volume. As many others have suggested, put it at the top.

I would like to see some customisation. People talk about not being fussed looking at the same thing all the time, but I bet they wear different clothing most days and change their hairstyle from time to time. A change is as good as a holiday. Does not have to be over the top but grid layout and some other things would be nice. Our iphone is probably the thing we use the most in our life so why can't we customise it to suit ourselves?

Merge the reminders app with the calendar app. One relies on the other so I don't see the need for a seperate app.

Have all the settings for the camera within the camera app.

Ability to lock the screen in landscape mode.

Would like an app where you can message Apple directly for any troubleshooting issues. Maybe implement that into the tips app. The app could allow for media to be sent through so you could send a screen shot or recording of your problem and they could message you back with a solution. And if a genius bar appointmwnt is required, you could book it directly through the app.

Would like a dedicated one stop shop multimedia editing app. The ability to do anything you want to a picture or video, for example, rotate a video because it was flipped when you recorded it, speed it up or down, add stickers to videos, etc, add filters, etc. All in the one native app.

Would also like the ability to rearrange media in the gallery. The abiluty to loop a video would also be good. I do have a loop app.

 

[iFanaddic]

IMO ios4 remains the most exciting OS update to date. It was the OS which introduced folders for apps, amongst other things. For the first time we could group apps with similar like features together. Extremely useful and not gimmicky at all. And it's something we all take for granted today.

That's what I'm hoping for in ios12. Something new and significant, which will add to the experience but not be gimmicky and/or of little use. Yes I want stability and a buttery smooth UI, but I think the OS is due for it's next ios4-like update.

With regards to the little things, what I would like to see are:

Dark mode. Waiting for the day a class action against Apple is filed for eyestrain, blindness or partial loss of vision.

Get rid of the 10% and 20% battery warning indicators after you have plugged your charger into your phone. I can understand the need for them when the battery is draining, but why have them pop up after I have plugged in the charger and its counted up to 10%? Extremely annoying especially when I'm watching a stream and the stream stops because my phone is warning me that my battery is back up to 10% again. Seriously.

Get rid of the volume bar which is smack bang in the middle of the screen when you toggle the volume. As many others have suggested, put it at the top.

I would like to see some customisation. People talk about not being fussed looking at the same thing all the time, but I bet they wear different clothing most days and change their hairstyle from time to time. A change is as good as a holiday. Does not have to be over the top but grid layout and some other things would be nice. Our iphone is probably the thing we use the most in our life so why can't we customise it to suit ourselves?

Merge the reminders app with the calendar app. One relies on the other so I don't see the need for a seperate app.

Have all the settings for the camera within the camera app.

Ability to lock the screen in landscape mode.

Would like an app where you can message Apple directly for any troubleshooting issues. Maybe implement that into the tips app. The app could allow for media to be sent through so you could send a screen shot or recording of your problem and they could message you back with a solution. And if a genius bar appointmwnt is required, you could book it directly through the app.

Would like a dedicated one stop shop multimedia editing app. The ability to do anything you want to a picture or video, for example, rotate a video because it was flipped when you recorded it, speed it up or down, add stickers to videos, etc, add filters, etc. All in the one native app.

Would also like the ability to rearrange media in the gallery. The abiluty to loop a video would also be good. I do have a loop app.

I like your vision!

 

[BornAgainMac]

If you tap the screen and a 3 dimensional image such as a person for FaceTime or map or object comes up.

 

[Sital]

Add a theme section to the App Store (or have a separate Theme Store). Apple would win by having control over content through a review process and it would be another income source. Users would win by having customization options available without jailbreaking.

 

[biracialfamily91]

For me personally IOS has become stale, but I rather Apple focus on the bugs first and then after we get a more stable IOS, we can worry about customization.
But for future reference I would like to see Apple do the following:

• Full system dark mode
• Notifications that are grouped by app
• Ability to choose default apps
• Split Screen
• Add a Theme store to IOS so that we can customize our phones to whatever we want without forcing everyone to use the same style (probably not gonna happen but a girl can dream right?)