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What Features Does iOS 7 Need?
Nerval's Lobster writes "Apple's iOS 7, which is heavily rumored to make its debut at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, will almost certainly feature a totally redesigned interface. According to recent rumors (including a few key postings on the Apple-centric blog 9 to 5 Mac), the OS will stand as a shining example of "flat" design, which eliminates "real world" elements such as texture and shading in favor of stripped-down, basic shapes. That means certain iOS environments such as Game Center (with its casino-like green felt) and Newsstand (with its wooden shelving) could soon look completely different. But what about iOS 7's actual features? What could Apple change that would improve the operating system's chances against the increasingly sophisticated Google Android, not to mention the new-and-improved BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone 8? What would you do to iOS with Apple's full resources at your disposal?"
the OS will stand as a shining example of "flat" design, which eliminates "real world" elements such as texture and shading in favor of stripped-down, basic shapes
I want to be able to choose Chrome as my browser instead of Safari.
I want 1password to be able to hook in to it.
I want apps to open new links in Chrome instead of their own embedded browser.
WebRTC support
Save MP3s in to iTunes
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
I might be a terrorist, after all.
It's not going to happen, but a single checkbox in the settings would do:
[ ] Allow installation of apps from unknown sources
other stuff: start adding resolution and density independent ui elements. you know, so that you wouldn't be so fucked as apple is with osx.
I beg to disagree: in theory resolution independent user interface elements should be a lot better than Apple's approach of only allowing double densities. Practice however shows, that if you have a resolution independent UI API, a lot of developers are lazy and do not adapt their layout to different screen sizes, or do not correctly use the APIs.
As an example, the windows experience on high-res displays is significantly worse than the Mac OS X experience: the majority of Windows applications simply do not work correctly on a Mac Book Pro Retina display, since only parts of the UI elements scale correctly, resulting in a complete mess.
Android fares somewhat better due to a better API, but the fine-tuned user interfaces for different resolutions on iOS (tablet/phone) usually make for a better user experience. On Android there is too little incentive (return on investment) for developers to fine-tune their user interfaces to different resolutions.
Or at least a "guest" mode, so that an iPad can be shared among parents and kids.
Central filesystem so apps can share data in a simple manner.
That would break simplicity.
The current solutions for importing/exporting files from Apple applications don't really qualify as "simple". Ever tried to share a file via iTunes or WebDAV? Having a filesystem that didn't raise its head until you chose 'share' wouldn't break simplicity - or maybe providing a standard API that let apps share through DropBox, Google Drive etc. (Flap, oink!)
I tried iCloud but it insists on moving everything off your iOS device into the cloud. If I wanted to do that I'd use Google Docs so I could share things with non-Mac users!
Allow printing to any fucking printer.
It can do printing, but only with printers that follow the spec. Printers that don't work requires extra drivers, that we shouldn't need in the first place anyway.
No, but there's no reason why Airprint can't work with any shared printer on your Mac. When AirPrint was first announced Apple were going to support this - then they signed an exclusive with HP and disappeared the feature. There's third-party software to do this (e.g. Printopia). At one point, I found instructions for adding the appropriate zeroconf and CUPS settings to my Linux box so I could print to it (but a later iOS update borked that).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Perhaps what it really needs is a "NSA Prism" icon
You realize that your TV is still only 1080p, whether its 55" or 155", its resolution is only 1920x1080. The issue at hand here is that when running windows on a higher resolution, such as the Retina display MBPs, the pixel density quadruples, and windows just cant handle that. We're talking resolution, not screen size
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
Makes sense that a program called "iTunes" would deal with sharing files and getting apps.
Citizen, thank you for your input, USTASI welcomes feedback like yours for double plus good safety.
Feel safe citizen.
Yours observantly,
Senator Dianne Feinstein
USTASI, the "United States, True American, Surveillance Initiative"
We value your privacy.
Thanks for pointing that out. I had not yet discovered it myself. (My GF has an ipad provided from her work.)
That is a really non-intuitive processes designed to prevent users from actually doing what they want. Why can't we just drag and drop from a folder like every other GUI? (including OSX)
I totally agree with GP. If Apple wants to improve the IOS experience they should get rid of the propriety crap and provide easy ways for people to use their devices as they want.
Mod parent up. iOS needs to keep doing what it's doing. It must be doing something right if /. consensus is that Android is "increasingly sophisticated". This is by the same group of people who don't understand why Linux does not have broad appeal.
As an iOS user and developer (as well as user and developer for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS and attempted but tired and frustrated user and developer for Android :) ) - I hope Apple continues with incremental and stable approach, giving users well thought out and tightly controlled new feature sets, while maintaining clean, simple and usable system.
Do *not* under any circumstances let engineers ruin this one.