What should be in iOS 6 next year?

[gadget123]

Anybody given it any thought now iOS5 is out? What is iOS5 missing that needs fixed in the next release in time for Iphone 5?

 

[vebs]

I hope they make things simpler to understand, use and explain things better, this whole iMessage / iCloud business is confusing as hell to most non-techy people.

I have friends that won't even update their phones because they don't get what any of the new stuff does.

 

[thenerdal]

A new UI D:

 

[CaliforniaKing]

Anybody given it any thought now iOS5 is out? What is iOS5 missing that needs fixed in the next release in time for Iphone 5?

• 
  Drag & drop wireless syncing with iTunes
  Choose camera resolution (480p,720p, or 1080p)
  Improved homescreen. iOS still looks very dated and stale!
  Lockscreen widgets
  More factory apps pre-installed. Pages and Keynote should come free!

 

[gadget123]

My list:

Bluetooth to all phones.
Further advanced camera options like effects so I don't need "apps" for it.
Bring the Ipod icon back.
Tabs in Iphone OS.
Wiglets.
Folder icons/covers.
Imessage as a seperate app for Iphone.

 

[nepalisherpa]

Built-in turn by turn navigation with voice guidance
More customizable folders (at least more than 12 apps per folder)
Gestures for iPhone/iPod Touches as well (less home button usage)

 

[akm3]

I would like to see the user able to define longer backgrounding on apps they choose. This is very anti-apple I never expect them to do it, but I would like it.

e.g. I can choose an app like iDialog and let it keep running in the background for more than 9 minutes.

 

[Pooshka]

Wish list:

- Siri 2.0: interaction with third-party apps, Settings app, etc.
- hide/unhide native apps
- password-protect any native app
- leave cells empty on Springboard as needed
- live app icons (besides the native Calendar app)
- new wallpapers
- copy/paste lyrics in Music app
- brightness easily adjustable to 25%, 50% and 75% (for us with OCD )
- delete Photo Stream photos selectively
- select all / delete all option in Mail app
- basic rules/filters in Mail app
- send to groups in Mail app
- set any song in Music app as Alarm Clock sound
- block specific or non-Contacts or all incoming calls
- clear all notification pop-ups on the lock screen without needing to unlock the phone
- clear all notification pop-ups in the Notification Center with one tap
- clear all notification badges with one tap
- access to some phone settings (e.g., Bluetooth, brightness, WiFi, etc.) in the Notification Center
- neon-glowing status bar to indicate new notifications
- in Messages app in the conversation view, swipe left/right to go to the next conversation thread
- flick with one finger from the very bottom to trigger multitasking bar
- force iPhone to launch any other compatible third-party app when tapping on phone numbers, addresses vs. launching native Phone, Maps apps, etc.

 

[pcunite]

File folder hierarchy ...

 

[Gemütlichkeit]

Lock screen widgets.

 

[gentlefury]

Lock screen widgets, more ram, and nav.

 

[MythicFrost]

My list:

Bluetooth to all phones.
Further advanced camera options like effects so I don't need "apps" for it.
Bring the Ipod icon back.
Tabs in Iphone OS.
Wiglets.
Folder icons/covers.
Imessage as a seperate app for Iphone.

Just so you know, iMessage isn't supposed to be a separate app. When you send a text, if the recipient is running iOS 5, it gets sent as an iMessage which doesn't cost you anything, if not, it gets sent as a text. (It also allows texting between iOS devices without a 3G connection.)

>>>

I'd like to see some form of Widgets, although I expect that is coming since Apple already has the stock and weather widgets in the notifications panel. Not sure really what Apple can do though, hopefully something exciting though.

 

[VPrime]

My thought is apple is going to take a similar approach to Microsoft and let apps seamlessly "talk" to each other.. Eg. Your photos app knows you have Facebook installed and can post to Facebook right from there.

EXCEPT, I think it will be dne through Siri. Siri will definitely be a bigger part of the next os and better integrate it self with other apps.
So in the above situation you could tell Siri "post my last three pictures to Facebook"

 

[burnside]

My top 5:

Lock screen widgets
3rd Party widgets
Faster access to bluetooth/wifi/airplane
Live Icons
Change default browser

 

[jade]

Additional lock options ala the patterns on Android
Snooze button for reminders and notifications
Gestures for ui navigation (forward and back for starters)
Favorites integration with gmail contacts/starred contacts
Better native gmail integration (i.e contacts without picking exchange)
Signatures per email account
Better exchange integration to control out of office settings
Automatic contact link, contact merge function
Reminders with any location (not just one in your address book)

 

[BlizzardBolt]

iOS5 was just released......

I would hold off on talking about iOS6, most people still have yet to experience the basic features of iOS5.

 

[SomeDudeAsking]

The whole settings panel is a mess. iOS needs to simplify. It is a tangled mess right now, especially for new users who have to tweak a lot of things to set it up properly.

 

[sakau2007]

1. Add photos (or any attachment) from the mail app
2. Ability to view photos by more tags like "people" "photographer" etc. not just albums/places. My photos are well tagged (in Windows) and iphone can't take advantage of this.
3. Ability to delete photos from photo stream
4. Ability to set camera access from the lock screen to a different app. Or better yet, just make the camera app a lot better (doesn't hold a candle to Camera+; Apple's app still has no timer, no ability to take pictures/videos at reduced quality if desired, still with very limited editing options)
5. Ability to hide 'photo library'. No need to have it if it is all duplicates
6. Ability to disable iMessage for specific contacts.
7. In messages, make the camera a general attachment button with the ability to attach a picture, location, contact, etc.
8. Ability to see/reply to sms/imessages from Mac OS (if this isn't already possible; Those of you with Macs can verify. I know if I were to get a Macbook or Mac Mini of some sort and couldn’t get notifications sent to my screen and be able to reply straight from my computer, I’d be pissed.)
9. An icon next to the 3G/Wifi signal on the top bar for the notification center telling me how many notifications I have
10. Ability to add data usage in current billing cycle as a sticky in notification center much like stocks/weather.
11. Better 3rd party access to notification center. The Yahoo! weather app sucks. Let me put a Weather Channel or Accuweather widget in there instead. There’s tons of untapped potential in the notification center. At the moment, all we have is a decent start.
12. Notification center in the cloud so clearing it on 1 device clears it on all your devices.
13. Ability to have the camera light blink every so often when you have notifications. Could be a battery drain? Every 30 seconds? Maybe every minute? Or (gasp) customizable?
14. Be able to password protect certain apps (mail, photos, settings, facebook, etc) or folders but allow anyone to play games, etc.
15. Ability for more customization. Something similar to SBSettings from jailbroken devices needs to be native.
16. Ability to hide apple's default apps like stocks, camera, weather, newsstand, etc.
17. Ability to close all 'suspended' apps running in the background at once. Not significant, but no reason I shouldn’t be able to.
18. Ability to move more than 1 icon at a time when changing the layout of the home pages
19. Be able to set a georeminder to a specific point (dropped pin?) instead of just an address of a contact. There is an app called Locationizer that does a decent job of this. I shouldn't have to add every place I frequent like grocery stores, pharmacies, malls, banks, post offices, etc. to my contacts list just to be able to use georeminders.
20. Ability to sort reminders by due date
21. Ability to 'snooze' a reminder from the lock screen
22. Ability to display next X calendar items, regardless of when they are.
23. Ability to make any song an alarm (or any other notification) tone. How can an iPhone not serve as an iPod alarm clock!? I could wake up to mp3s in 1998. Complete nonsense.
24. Ability to disable twitter integration if you don't use it (maybe have it auto enabled if you have a tweeting app installed, auto disabled if you don’t)
25. Fix the music player. Completely. I’m mainly referring to their bastardization of the iPad music player. They really messed this up. You can no longer see lyrics? Why would they remove features? Maybe so they can add them back as one of “200 new features in iOS 6?”?
26. Ability to subscribe to podcasts directly from iPhone (Computer free? What?) Basically, just replicate the app ‘podcaster 4’ which also does push notifications among other things.
27. Ability to send playing now in music app to services like last.fm. This could be a failure on the app developers part, but I’d be willing to bet Apple is somehow tying their hands.
28. In music app, ability to play a song and go back to a list of music and select 'add to playing now'. Basically be able to create a playlist on the fly.
29. Voice memos – don’ t have them start playing automatically after the recording is finished. Also, it changes my volume back to max when it starts playing, even when I have previously reduced the volume. Annoying.
30. Facetime over 3g. Thought this was already coming but haven't seen it yet. Don’t put this in without letting me see my data usage in the notification center.
31. Be able to swipe from top to bottom on any app that uses the keyboard to hide it (doesn't work in notes, etc)
32. Option for a 5th row keyboard with numbers, or even let us fully customize out keyboard.
33. Ability to have line returns in keyboard shortcuts. This would be useful for addresses.
34. Ability to rename apps on the home screen.
35. Ability to add more than 12 apps to a folder. Let it scroll horizontally or vertically horizontally.
36. Improve the YouTube app with subtitle support and other newer YouTube features.
37. Be able to drop pin in ‘Find Friends’ and see street view
38. Ability to merge Apple IDs. Isn't bothering me, but clearly some people need this.
39. Within iTunes, the ability to right click and 'send to iPhone' since apparently dragging and dropping like pc's did 15+ years ago is never going to happen
40. Don't force us to have an internet connection for all of Siri’s functionality. If I’m asking for the weather, fine, but for simpler speech to text, come on. Why do you need a connection to set an alarm, calendar appointment, etc? I’d actually go ahead and say put Siri/Voice-to-text on older iPhones, but I know Apple won’t do this because they want to force people to spend their money buying their latest and greatest products, even if they aren’t that much greater under the hood.
41. Guaranteed money back on app purchases for something like 30 minutes. I haven’t needed it, but there’s quite a few paid apps that I’d like to see how they work hands on before I commit to buying. I don’t think offering a 15 minute, 30 minute, or an hour trial would be so terrible.
42. Put some kind of weather feature on the lock screen instead of having to go into a weather app or notification center.
43. Ability to get Google Contacts to sync ‘groups’. I have my contacts divided into friends, restaurants, family, rarely used, etc. Would be nice to be able to click on contacts and just have numbers I actually use (friends) and if I need to step back a directory and go to restaurants or whatever, I could choose to do that.
44. When you edit a contact, have twitter handle (and facebook url?) be default fields. After all, we are integrating these things into the OS, right?


i'm sure i can think of more.

 

[VPrime]

1. Add photos (or any attachment) from the mail app
2. Ability to view photos by more tags like "people" "photographer" etc. not just albums/places. My photos are well tagged (in Windows) and iphone can't take advantage of this.
3. Ability to delete photos from photo stream
4. Ability to set camera access from the lock screen to a different app. Or better yet, just make the camera app a lot better (doesn't hold a candle to Camera+; Apple's app still has no timer, no ability to take pictures/videos at reduced quality if desired, still with very limited editing options)
5. Ability to hide 'photo library'. No need to have it if it is all duplicates
6. Ability to disable iMessage for specific contacts.
7. In messages, make the camera a general attachment button with the ability to attach a picture, location, contact, etc.
8. Ability to see/reply to sms/imessages from Mac OS (if this isn't already possible; Those of you with Macs can verify. I know if I were to get a Macbook or Mac Mini of some sort and couldn’t get notifications sent to my screen and be able to reply straight from my computer, I’d be pissed.)
9. An icon next to the 3G/Wifi signal on the top bar for the notification center telling me how many notifications I have
10. Ability to add data usage in current billing cycle as a sticky in notification center much like stocks/weather.
11. Better 3rd party access to notification center. The Yahoo! weather app sucks. Let me put a Weather Channel or Accuweather widget in there instead. There’s tons of untapped potential in the notification center. At the moment, all we have is a decent start.
12. Notification center in the cloud so clearing it on 1 device clears it on all your devices.
13. Ability to have the camera light blink every so often when you have notifications. Could be a battery drain? Every 30 seconds? Maybe every minute? Or (gasp) customizable?
14. Be able to password protect certain apps (mail, photos, settings, facebook, etc) or folders but allow anyone to play games, etc.
15. Ability for more customization. Something similar to SBSettings from jailbroken devices needs to be native.
16. Ability to hide apple's default apps like stocks, camera, weather, newsstand, etc.
17. Ability to close all 'suspended' apps running in the background at once. Not significant, but no reason I shouldn’t be able to.
18. Ability to move more than 1 icon at a time when changing the layout of the home pages
19. Be able to set a georeminder to a specific point (dropped pin?) instead of just an address of a contact. There is an app called Locationizer that does a decent job of this. I shouldn't have to add every place I frequent like grocery stores, pharmacies, malls, banks, post offices, etc. to my contacts list just to be able to use georeminders.
20. Ability to sort reminders by due date
21. Ability to 'snooze' a reminder from the lock screen
22. Ability to display next X calendar items, regardless of when they are.
23. Ability to make any song an alarm (or any other notification) tone. How can an iPhone not serve as an iPod alarm clock!? I could wake up to mp3s in 1998. Complete nonsense.
24. Ability to disable twitter integration if you don't use it (maybe have it auto enabled if you have a tweeting app installed, auto disabled if you don’t)
25. Fix the music player. Completely. I’m mainly referring to their bastardization of the iPad music player. They really messed this up. You can no longer see lyrics? Why would they remove features? Maybe so they can add them back as one of “200 new features in iOS 6?”?
26. Ability to subscribe to podcasts directly from iPhone (Computer free? What?) Basically, just replicate the app ‘podcaster 4’ which also does push notifications among other things.
27. Ability to send playing now in music app to services like last.fm. This could be a failure on the app developers part, but I’d be willing to bet Apple is somehow tying their hands.
28. In music app, ability to play a song and go back to a list of music and select 'add to playing now'. Basically be able to create a playlist on the fly.
29. Voice memos – don’ t have them start playing automatically after the recording is finished. Also, it changes my volume back to max when it starts playing, even when I have previously reduced the volume. Annoying.
30. Facetime over 3g. Thought this was already coming but haven't seen it yet. Don’t put this in without letting me see my data usage in the notification center.
31. Be able to swipe from top to bottom on any app that uses the keyboard to hide it (doesn't work in notes, etc)
32. Option for a 5th row keyboard with numbers, or even let us fully customize out keyboard.
33. Ability to have line returns in keyboard shortcuts. This would be useful for addresses.
34. Ability to rename apps on the home screen.
35. Ability to add more than 12 apps to a folder. Let it scroll horizontally or vertically horizontally.
36. Improve the YouTube app with subtitle support and other newer YouTube features.
37. Be able to drop pin in ‘Find Friends’ and see street view
38. Ability to merge Apple IDs. Isn't bothering me, but clearly some people need this.
39. Within iTunes, the ability to right click and 'send to iPhone' since apparently dragging and dropping like pc's did 15+ years ago is never going to happen
40. Don't force us to have an internet connection for all of Siri’s functionality. If I’m asking for the weather, fine, but for simpler speech to text, come on. Why do you need a connection to set an alarm, calendar appointment, etc? I’d actually go ahead and say put Siri/Voice-to-text on older iPhones, but I know Apple won’t do this because they want to force people to spend their money buying their latest and greatest products, even if they aren’t that much greater under the hood.
41. Guaranteed money back on app purchases for something like 30 minutes. I haven’t needed it, but there’s quite a few paid apps that I’d like to see how they work hands on before I commit to buying. I don’t think offering a 15 minute, 30 minute, or an hour trial would be so terrible.
42. Put some kind of weather feature on the lock screen instead of having to go into a weather app or notification center.
43. Ability to get Google Contacts to sync ‘groups’. I have my contacts divided into friends, restaurants, family, rarely used, etc. Would be nice to be able to click on contacts and just have numbers I actually use (friends) and if I need to step back a directory and go to restaurants or whatever, I could choose to do that.
44. When you edit a contact, have twitter handle (and facebook url?) be default fields. After all, we are integrating these things into the OS, right?


i'm sure i can think of more.

I stopped reading pretty early on (sorry), so I'll just address your first point.
You can sort of do this already, but it is a mess.
If you switch to photos app and load your image select and hold your image and tap copy. Then you can paste Inside the email you are currently writing.
Not clean and "apple like" but it does work..... With images.

 

[Bernard SG]

Controlling the device with my mind.

 

[RossMc]

Bring back the setting for when using headphones say if you were watching a video on the iPad and you closed the video app and then reopened it you used to be able to press the button on the headphones to play the video again. Now it just plays Music instead.

 

[AlphaVictor87]

Wish list:

- Siri 2.0: interaction with third-party apps, Settings app, etc.
- hide/unhide native apps
- password-protect any native app
- leave cells empty on Springboard as needed
- live app icons (besides the native Calendar app)
- new wallpapers
- copy/paste lyrics in Music app
- brightness easily adjustable to 25%, 50% and 75% (for us with OCD )
- delete Photo Stream photos selectively
- select all / delete all option in Mail app
- basic rules/filters in Mail app
- send to groups in Mail app
- set any song in Music app as Alarm Clock sound
- block specific or non-Contacts or all incoming calls
- clear all notification pop-ups on the lock screen without needing to unlock the phone
- clear all notification pop-ups in the Notification Center with one tap
- clear all notification badges with one tap
- access to some phone settings (e.g., Bluetooth, brightness, WiFi, etc.) in the Notification Center
- flashing status bar to indicate new notifications
- in Messages app in the conversation view, swipe left/right to go to the next conversation thread
- flick with one finger from the very bottom to trigger multitasking bar
- force iPhone to launch any other compatible third-party app when tapping on phone numbers, addresses vs. launching native Phone, Maps apps, etc.

Just a few thoughts-

Siri isn't even 1.0 yet, i feel i keep having to remind people this. Its still in Beta which means your wants for Siri could still come out when it moves out of Beta.

Clearing notifications on notification center, they have the x's for all the little groups. If you REALLY have that many notifications that you cant hit the x a few times rather than once then that sucks. Most people like to keep their notifications if they don't want to read them then and there and only want to clear a select few.

I think a flashing status bar would be annoying

I do like your idea about swiping up from the bottom for the multi tasking tray and having bluetooth and wifi settings available from notification center

 

[sakau2007]

I stopped reading pretty early on (sorry), so I'll just address your first point.
You can sort of do this already, but it is a mess.
If you switch to photos app and load your image select and hold your image and tap copy. Then you can paste Inside the email you are currently writing.
Not clean and "apple like" but it does work..... With images.

Yeah, I knew this. But it's just a silly workaround. They need to just put a paperclip attachment button on the far right of the subject line and then let me select any file I want to attach. Image, Video, Voice Memo, other documents on the device (PDFs, etc). There's just no good reason why this can't be done.

 

[Pooshka]

Just a few thoughts-

Siri isn't even 1.0 yet, i feel i keep having to remind people this. Its still in Beta which means your wants for Siri could still come out when it moves out of Beta.

Clearing notifications on notification center, they have the x's for all the little groups. If you REALLY have that many notifications that you cant hit the x a few times rather than once then that sucks. Most people like to keep their notifications if they don't want to read them then and there and only want to clear a select few.

I think a flashing status bar would be annoying

I do like your idea about swiping up from the bottom for the multi tasking tray and having bluetooth and wifi settings available from notification center

I assume Siri will go 1.0 pretty soon. But I highly doubt 1.0 will have the features on my wish list. Therefore by WWDC '12, Siri 2.0 will be long due, which is why it's on my list.

Maybe you're right about the notifications thing.

I didn't really mean the kind of flashing where it annoys you, makes your eye twitch, or causes sudden body convulsions. No, it's more of a subtle Apple-style color-gradient change to something pleasant to look at, for example, some soft neon color. Here's another example, have you ever seen MacBook Pro's (or any Mac for that matter) sleep indicator? It's not annoying, is it? That's what I meant by 'flashing'. Perhaps I used the wrong word. Sorry.

 

[AlphaVictor87]

I didn't really mean the kind of flashing where it annoys you, makes your eye twitch, or causes sudden body convulsions. No, it's more of a subtle Apple-style color-gradient change to something pleasant to look at, for example, some soft neon color. Here's another example, have you ever seen MacBook Pro's (or any Mac for that matter) sleep indicator? It's not annoying, is it? That's what I meant by 'flashing'. Perhaps I used the wrong word. Sorry.

No i understood, i figured you meant just like a .... i guess glowing color change would be a good word lol i dunno

As long as theres an option to turn it off i'd be ok with that, just to try it out