If you have not heard of the iPhone, then I would like to shake your hand, as it has been coined for years the most desirable Smartphone on the market. The usefulness of the device caused me to buy it, with its diversity in the App Store, ranging from me being able to plan a Train Journey to Streaming Video over the air from my Computer.
This may sound like an Apple Fanboy speaking, but I find that although its a great device, there are some drawbacks that I would love to see fixed with the device in the next revision of the iPhone Software, which is hoped to be released around the iPad Launch, or later in the summer. I deliberately won’t include the fact that the device doesn’t have flash, as while I would like to see it included, Adobe would have to bring out a pretty optimized version as the Windows version is one of the most intensive tasks on my computer.
Improvements to the in-built applications
While the applications included by default are good, I feel some are not capable compared to web alternatives. For example, the Mail client on the iPhone just seems to be a battery drain for me, as it will not download 200 messages through exchange as requested, which means search becomes pretty much useless as I get many emails in a day, so i am forced to use the Google Mail web client, which is a vast improvement.
Although I have autofill checked in settings, I rarely have the fields autofilled on the sites I visit in the in-built Safari browser (some may say that this is a security risk, but my device has a passcode anyway when unlocked or powered on), and for some reason there is an “autofill” button? Surely if it was auto, you wouldn’t have to press a button!
In the calendar app, I have found it would be useful to have a year view, but we just have the options of list, day and month. Each day on the calendar that has something on it has a dot, which is not useful when looking at an overview. I have many calendars that do different things (like “Chase up”, “Personal Events”, “Work Deadlines”) which have a different coloured dot next to them, so having those on the month view would be handy for me, as I work mostly in that view.
I find it ironic that we are forced to use Apple Software as software that is created for the App Store that rivals the in-built software, yet the software is so limited, which follows Apples example of having a closed ecosystem (although having all apps checked in the app store may be a good thing to reduce support calls if the app is stable)
App Store Warnings
A recent news article stated that Apple had taken 5000 iPhone applications out of the App Store for objectionable content with rules such as “No Skin”. I feel this is excessive, as we can browse whatever site we like in the in-built Safari browser anyway, so all we really need is a popup dialogue saying “This application may contain flesh, nudity, or sexual images” with an accept or cancel, with the option of parental controls to prevent younger Apple device owners from seeing this.
Better Battery Life
This is the biggest let-down on the iPhone, and I have found that the introduction of Push Notifications has further worsened this. I have noticed on many updates from Apple that in the upgrade there is an option that says “Improved Battery Life” but have always found no improvement with the update.
Deleting Photos/Music on the device
This issue is a big one, if you have synced photos across from “My Pictures” on to the iPhone, unless using a jailbroken application such as MobileFinder and spending a long time trying to find where they are located, there is no way to remove those pictures from the device, which also applies to music. Come on Apple, if I have a picture I don’t want on my phone I have to untick the option from iTunes? What if I’m away from the computer?!
Transferring Songs FROM the iPhone
Another absurd problem, is that the only thing we can retrieve from our devices is pictures from the camera roll, so if our Computer dies and has to be reinstalled, we have to download an application that will do this for us, which is a major annoyance.
Bluetooth!
The iPhone has bluetooth, but will not do any sort of file transfers to other devices. Maybe this is to stop piracy or keep things locked down as Apple likes, but it would be a welcome feature.
iTunes Improvements
Some things in iTunes have been overlooked by Apple, such as the fact that Mozilla Firefox users can not synchronise their bookmarks to their iPhone, and judging by the amount of people who have downloaded the Latest Version of the browser, this affects way too many people.
If you use Google Sync and have the Contacts/Calendar synced to your phone over the air, iTunes will tell you this is happening and still give you the option to sync with desktop clients such as Microsoft Oulook, but does not do this. This option would be extremely useful for me so I do not have to use Google Calendar Sync, and can have the contacts synced with the Microsoft Application.
We should be able to Drag and Drop single tracks/podcasts/films straight onto the device through iTunes as if we only want a few tracks on the device, we must manually go through and check the boxes.
As you can see, I have many things I would like to see improved on the device which would make Unfortunately, I have not been impressed with the past few keynotes from Apple, and it has taken a long time to add things a lot of things people have been waiting for, and I sometimes feel the speculation ruins the Keynotes as some things we have high hopes for do not get included.
What would you like to see included? Let us know in the comments
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