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Sunday, May 13, 2012

8 Ways Apple Should Improve the iPhone

Unfortunately, Apple has not (yet) hired me as an offical advisor, but I'm writing this post anyway because I think we need to get the word out there about how the iPhone 4s should be improved, preferably with the next software update (get on it, Apple!).
First of all, let me just say that I love Apple and everything it creates, so this isn't meant to be an Apple-bashing post. It's precisely because I use my iPhone and all it's handy capabilities so often that I'm bugged by these (mostly) minor issues.
Post your own iPhone pet peeves in the comments!

1. Tabs in Safari
It irritates me to no end that when you open a link in a new window in Safari, you are automatically switched over to the new window without the option of staying on the page you were already viewing. This has bothered me for ages, but at first I kind of disregarded my ire, figuring it was just one of those stupid, pointless things that was never going to change. But then I got my iPad and found (to my delight) that in Safari on iPad, new tabs open without disrupting your current viewing! This needs to happen on iPhone, fast.

2. Downloading Apps from the App Store
Along the same lines, can someone please explain to me why on earth the App Store has to close every time you click download/buy on an App? I don't need to view my home screen! In fact, chances are, I want to keep browsing for apps! I almost always download multiple apps at a time and it is such a waste of time to have to watch the app store close and reopen after the purchase of each app. Unfortunately, I can't say this problem has been fixed on the iPad, unlike the Safari

3. Siri Lacking Support for Map Information in Canada
Apparently this is supposed to roll out in 2012... Fingers crossed! I want to be able to locate coffee (by voice command, of course) wherever I am!
But in all earnestness, this prevents you from viewing movie listings, searching for anything nearby you like a restaurant or post office, and looking up directions via Siri. These are all valuable functions, in my opinion.

4. Tweet from Siri
When I'm walking and want to send a voice command, I more often think of something that I want to tweet than of anything else -- and, guess what? It's essentially the only thing I can't do by voice command. Siri is great, but if they're going to integrate Twitter into iOS it would be really helpful if it were fully integrated.


5. Facebook Integration
On the topic of integration, I really think you should be able to share photos and website directly from Photos and Safari to Facebook, as you can now to Twitter. I realize this isn't only Apple's fault -- Facebook needs to play nice for this to happen. But, as far as I can tell, Facebook is simply allowing Twitter to have the upper hand by not striking a deal with Apple to make this happen. Not to mention it would be very convenient for me...

6. Flash Support
This has been a long time coming. Like Facebook, Flash probably just needs to work with Apple a bit to have this longtime dream of many Apple fanatics come true.

7. Ability to Reorder Reminders
I use the reminders feature all the time, often for things like my grocery or packing list. But I am unable to reorder the reminders after adding them! This is extremely frustrating because I often miss items in scrolling up and down all the time while I'm walking through the grocery store.

8. Formatting for Notes
This is kind of like the Reminders thing. I use Notes a lot for all kinds of purposes, sometimes even writing whole blog posts on my notes app while I'm on a bus, or even copying things down from a book into the library for use in an essay later. I would love it if I could have more font options -- ones that are more societally acceptable, like Times New Roman or Arial -- but I would particularly love the ability to bold/italic/underline text.

Note: I quickly googled all of these in the interests of research, and in most cases you can either download an App (often paid) or use a backwoods way to change these things yourself. However, I paid a lot for my iPhone, and I don't think it's too much to ask to have Apple make my life easier and just include these features by default, pretty please?



2 comments:

  1. Interestingly enough, Adobe has discontinued development of Flash for mobile devices. Steve Jobs' refused to incorporate Flash into his products because he viewed HTML5 as far superior. It seems he was right and Adobe has accepted it haha.

    I love so many of the other suggestions though!

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  2. Oh! Thanks for the info, I hadn't heard that before! Let's just hope websites get on board with that, soon, too, so I can actually view them on my iPhone :)

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