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What Features Should Be Included With iPhone 3.0?
With the announcement coming tomorrow, Macworld has posted their top list of 15 features they would like to see in an iPhone 3.0 update. The list includes some things that people have been asking for since launch (like cut and paste) and things that were once there but have since been silently removed (like push notifications/background apps). With almost 2 years of time to grow and learn, what other things are woefully inadequate on Apple's popular handheld?
... a keyboard?
-Standard USB data/charging cable
-USB mass storage support
-Video recording
-Tethering
-Multitasking
-MMS
and make it open.
Not just because it's absolutely awesome to download horror films in a field somewhere and watch them on a real screen, but because it would force mobile phone service providers to offer it as a consumerland option. It beats the hell out of a seperate USB-stick mobile broadband package, even at £5 extra per month. And it would mean that you finally have a mobile broadband option for your Macbook.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Google Maps on the phone is useless for actually getting somewhere. It draws a nice line but without turn by turn navigation or even detecting when you're off the path and re-calculating it's no good for driving.
I know it says it's not meant for that but that strikes me as trying to cover up being inadequate with some after the fact documentation and legalese.
This one drives me nuts. My life is conf calls yet when a call number in included in a meeting invite, IT'S NOT LINKED like phone number are EVERYWHERE else in the phone apps.
I don't know what girlintraining was talking about, but I'd love to see the whole thing just opened up in terms of installing applications. Give up control. Let me install things straight from the Internet without the store. Stop restricting what applications people are permitted to write.
I don't know if Apple is allowed to do that because of some deal with AT&T. Maybe they're required to take measures to restrict certain kinds of functionality. Still, it's something I'd like to see.
1. A more complete bluetooth stack that does OBEX and A2DP and Syncing.
2. an IChat client.
3. A side swipe like the one in Mail and SMS to delete individual calls from the recents List.
4. Notes Sync with the Desktop.
5. Voice Dialing (ala Voice Commmand on Winmo) would be nice.
Do not read this
Well, that is a workaround
No, a workaround is something you have to do in order to do something the product was not designed to do.
The App Store was designed to work with all of the products you might own, so being able to use the apps on multiple devices is not a "workaround", it's by design.
Stripping out the DRM to give free apps to others is a "workaround"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Regarding the calendar issue - GMail now has an Exchange interface that supports calendar and contacts.
Since the iPhone only supports one Exchange server at a time (that's what mine told me) I changed my work email to IMAP only, and set up my personal Gmail account to the Exchange service and now - all my contacts and calendar are synched.
Also - I found an app that synch's my work Outlook/Exchange Calendar with my Google calendar - so I leave it running on my desktop at work, and everything is automagically synched!
My Slashdot Journal! YAY!
Additional Features:
1) Flash Player, especially since Adobe's been working on it and stating that it's more so a policy issue. (Policy is what seems to be blocking Flash, TomTom, multi-tasking, and more.)
2) Set WiFi alert time. I mean seriously, you drive through downtown and you can't even use your iPhone thanks to all the wifi alerts. That said, you'd still like to know if wifi is available when you're lounging around somewhere. Let us be able to set the following: a) Alert after 30 seconds of availability (this would eliminate the alerts popping up while driving), b) alert met to open/unlocked networks or ALL networks.
3) File transfer (let me be able to easily move files I want available locally on my iphone). And let me move files from other iTunes manually. Enable disk use (wireless and USB), USB a must and wireless a plus.
4) Dump iTunes. Seriously, talk about specification creep. When a music player now manages movies, television, that's one thing. But when it's your application manager and synchronization tool as well. Apple really needs to launch a new tool, call iLife or what not. Where iTunes would just be one category. I mean, I really hate having to go under music to find my TV shows and apps and such. LAME!!!
5) Ability to print basic text would be nice.
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They could repurpose some of the buttons on the device if the screen is currently off. Leave the on/off button doing it's current function ('waking' the screen), and change the home button to play/pause, push-and-hold on the volume up/down changes track, instead of making the volume repeatedly go up.
Er, at least I think the iPhone has a volume control on it. I know the iPod Touch 2G does, and I'd love this to be done for it's controls...
Complete cleaving the tether to a local machine: permit downloading files (txt, pdf, etc.) while browsing and allow access to them between apps (e.g, safari, mail, Annotater, who's going to write vi?).