12 things we would like to see in iPhone OS 4.0

The iPhone is seriously inferior to some smartphones in almost all areas except the market share. As a man armed with both an iPhone and a Blackberry, I am very well acquainted with the disabilities of both the first and second phones. Blackberry’s weaknesses are well known: it lacks a good app store and everything that’s behind it, a good browser and, as some people complain, a multitouch. Despite this, I still use Blackberry, and then I thought: what is missing is iPhone OS 4.0 (which may be announced today, but not later than spring and certainly WWDC) in order to make the iPhone a single device for entertainment and business? I'll warn your dumb question: we will think about Android another time.

The following is a list of the 12 most useful, and I’m not afraid of this word, the necessary functions that should appear in the next update of the iPhone OS. All features are already present in Windows Mobile, Android or Blackberry, or very similar to existing ones.

Improved alerts: view, sound, setting

Of course, Apple has always been different because it didn’t give users more room to modify and customize their products, but I think Apple’s time to give more control over the alert features in the iPhone.
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1. Screen Saver Improvements
We believe that it is almost crazy - do not block your smartphone with a PIN. But when you do it on the iPhone, you limit yourself to alerts. We would like to see at least a counter of letters and SMS on the screen saver. We should not unlock the phone and enter the PIN-code to see how many new messages appeared there (or maybe it did not appear at all). Look at the visualization we drew; Of course, it is possible to do it. And of course, Apple can, for example, make it translucent, or place indicators on the status bar at the top, so as not to overlap your precious wallpaper.

2. Custom sound alerts
Infinitely wise, Apple allows you to change your ringtone, select the SMS sound, and, if you want, use sound alerts for messages, voice mail or reminders in the calendar. But give us more standard sounds - and the ability to use your sounds for any type of reminder. Annoyed when nine people are sitting at the meeting, someone has a standard melody, and seven people press the Home button to check if it was their phone.

3. Scheduling alerts
About once a week I hear that someone missed the call or did not see the SMS because I left my phone in silent mode for the night (or before school), and then I forgot to turn the sound back on.

4. Different vibrations
When the phone is in silent mode, all alerts (except the bell) vibrate the same way - once. Give the same assignment of custom vibration schemes for different alerts: for example, three short vibrations for SMS, two for writing.

5. SMS Reminders
Let me set the number of reminders for the incoming SMS myself.

6. Special reminders
Give the opportunity to use special alerts, say, for writing with special importance or with a special topic, or from selected senders: for example, “You are the boss,” or “Brett Favre left the sport for the 14th time.”

Improved power management

Apple claims to be proud of its “green” products, but when it comes to the iPhone, there’s really nothing to work with. A few improvements would make the iPhone more efficient, and the battery more durable.

7. Energy Planning
A cool feature I've seen on many smartphones that is best done on a Blackberry is the ability to plan when the phone and / or its antenna should work. We all consume energy, right? So, on weekdays from midnight to six in the morning I don't need my phone. Let me automate this.

8. Advanced email scheduling, push
Push is one of the things that makes Blackberry work so amazing. Apple, let us specify at what time we want to use the Push mode, and at what time - Fetch. Secondly, give the opportunity to specify when it is worth checking mail accounts in general. Some of my friends would like their phone not to check mail at night or on weekends.

Seriously about the Mail application and switching between tasks

Mail on the iPhone is a very unsatisfactory thing compared to other smartphones. Of course, it is “good enough” for most people, but, again, focusing on something in between is the same thing as crab sticks when you can enjoy tuna rolls.

9. Support single inbox or improved navigation.
If you have more than one mail account, you know how inconvenient it is to switch between them. Now it takes at least 4 clicks to go from one inbox to another. Make a merge, or make the transition between folders easier. Or maybe this and that?

10. Full synchronization and mail storage
Unlike Blackberry and other smartphones, the iPhone does not sync folders until you enter them (though, if you have Exchange, then you have the opportunity to receive all letters from all folders using Push). For example, if you find the message you sent earlier this day in the Sent Items folder, then you will have to wait for all sent messages to load in chronological order. This makes it terribly inconvenient to use any folder other than Inbox, but it also limits the effectiveness of searching through messages.

11. Possibility of additional action directly from the search
Great that you can search in the mail on the iPhone, but it's stupid that you can't do much with the search results. Found letters cannot be deleted or moved to the folder. And expand your search! Now you can search only in the folder in which you are, which is inconvenient when you are not sure where you should look.

12. Run applications in the background
When I am on the road, I noticed that I constantly open and close mail because I cannot keep other applications in the background. Need to check the calendar? See something on the web? Open, close, open, close, open. Both Palm and Google have already got rid of this, and we know that this can be achieved on jailbroken iPhones. Standardize the data transfer protocol: Palm figured it out, and there is no reason Apple can't do that (we just suspect that it doesn't want it). We need a standardized protocol for third-party applications to sync the iPhone and computer. Many have already matured smart solutions, mainly in the use of Bonjour auto-detection, but there are a lot of problems on the computer side.

Eventually…

To implement most of the proposed ideas, it is not required that the mountain go to Magomed itself. I deliberately stayed away from the technologically complex "cranes", trying to concentrate on the "tits" that can be expected in the coming months. In all conscience, most of these things should already be working.