With the hype surrounding the iPhone it seems that everyone wants it to doeverything. Before I start my list of iPhone 2.0 “wants” I thought itwould be prudent to mention that never before have I seen a smartphone sobeautiful, easy to use and powerful. The iPhone does the 4 things I needvery, very well: phone, e-mail, web browsing and SMS. In my opinion theiPhone does these 4 things better than any other device on the market by a verylarge margin. After playing with the device for well over a week I have alist of features I would like to see outside of the normal ringtones and moreYouTube videos and removable battery complaints. Maybe I can do some ofthese things today and I would ask the community to help enhance this list andhelp figure out how to do some of these items:
1 - Better IMAP subscriptions. I already use IMAP as my primarymethod for e-mail. It’s beautiful being able to grab a new device andhave all of my mail download in a couple of minutes with full folder structureand messages. I have a couple of folders that I use primarily offlinesuch as archives and shared mailboxes (yes these show up too unlike theBlackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile devices) that I simply don’t need on theiPhone. While it’s no big deal to ignore these folders it would be niceif I could select which folders I would like to subscribe to like in everyother IMAP client I have used.
2 - Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Did you know that Google Docsworks on the iPhone? Well, it mostly works. You can open yourGoogle Docs account, you can view your list of docs and you can even readyyour documents that you created on your Mac or PC. If you want to starta new doc or edit an existing document, well, you’re out of luck. GoogleDocs appears to only work in read only mode. I know I’m being pickyhere, none of my other smartphones can even do that, but it would be nice totake it to the next level. There may be a reason that I can’t editdocuments and that is…
3 - No cut/copy/paste. Heck, no item selections. EvenWindows Mobile has this! I can’t select a line of text to delete it. I can’t select a line of text to cut/copy/paste it. I simply can’tselect a line of text! Makes it really hard to edit a text document whenyou don’t have simply cut/copy/paste features such as those found in theoriginal Macintosh built in 1984.
4 - IMAP Idle. I would love to know if the mail client supportsIMAP Idle. It seems that I’m getting mail on my iPhone before I get itin my mail account. I know my server supports the idle command, but whatabout the iPhone? It could also be the luck of the draw when it comes toscheduled checks.
5 - Custom SMS Tones. I have always wanted this feature in a smartphoneand to date I have never figured out how to do it on any platform… Iwould like t have different alert sounds for SMS. Just as I can havedifferent ringtones for callers, so too would I like to be able to set updifferent SMS alert tones based on who is sending the message. In myscenario I monitor a series of servers with an outside service that will SMSmy phone when something goes offline. An alarm tone would be nice forthose messages, a tweet tone would be nice for twitter messages and a belltone would be nice for most everything else.
6 - Unified communications. This one is less Apple and moreGrandCentral… I use a GrandCentral phone number to forward calls towhatever phone I want. I was hoping that GrandCentral would haveimplemented SMS forwarding before the iPhone launch so I could migratecompletely to that number. Alas they have yet to announce anything alongthe lines of SMS. My real gripe is that I can not manage my GrandCentralfrom my iPhone. For reasons I don’t understand at all GrandCentralrequires the use of Adobe Flash to log in. What they are doing thatrequires flash is beyond me, but the iPhone does not support flash andGrandCentral requires it. One of the two needs to get this fixed. Of course it would be nice if Apple would support flash but they seem tohave gone out of their way to not support it, so I won’t hold my breath.
7 - Video on the camera. The still camera is beautiful. Notas good as a Nokia N95, but close enough for most users. I find it oddthat I can watch YouTube content on my iPhone but I can’t create any. Iwould love to see Apple create a video camera application to allow me torecord a video, do basic editing (iMovie on my iPhone) and send that toYouTube or e-mail it off to services like Blip or Revver over my not-so-fastEDGE connection. I don’t want to have to carry a video camera with meeverywhere and the iPhone is good enough at photos, now we just need videosupport.
8 - Interaction with AJAXy web pages. The Google Maps app on theiPhone is awesome. What if I want to look at a mashup? What if Iwant to find a home on a site likecoloradohomestop.com? I can see the map, I can see the properties but there’s no way for me tozoom in including the standard google zoom bar. I’ll say that thesesites get a lot further than any other mobile device out there. Mostsmartphones just show the header and then die, the iPhone shows the wholesite. I just can’t use it because I can’t interact with the page. Being that Apple would like to make AJAX the development platform forthe iPhone (yeah right) I think that they should make the Safari browser justa bit better when it comes to being able to interact with web sites.
9 - Bluetooth VCards. I am flabbergasted that I can not send mypersonal VCard to other phones let along other iPhones. If I findanother smartphone user or I’m in a social environment and I want to share mydetails, why can’t I just say ’share card’? This seems to be a hugeoversight on Apple’s part and even dumb phones can do this. The iPhone*has* Bluetooth, why not allow me to select my card from contacts and send toother Bluetooth devices? I can only hope that they had to cut thisfeature to get the phone to market because as it stands this one missingfeature is a huge disappointment.
10 - iTunes integration for all aspects of my new AT&T account. Activating, for me at least, was super easy through iTunes. TheAT&T web site for account management isn’t up to Apple’s level of userfriendliness. I would love to be able to manage my account directly iniTunes. Minutes used, minutes left, upgrade or downgrade my serviceplan, paying my bill or anything having to do with my iPhone. It shouldfeel like one huge integrated service, right now it feels mostly integrated.
With these complains and requests would I go back to my Treo 700wx, Treo 700por Blackberry? Oh hell no. You’ll have to pry my iPhone from myhands! Never before have I seen the web, e-mail and SMS done so well onany other phone. The list of features I would like to see on everyoneelses smartphones is so large it’s not even worth posting. No device isperfect, but I would say that the iPhone is the closest I have seen to date bya very, very long shot. Apple has a few kinks to work out but I have nodoubt that in future iPhone software releases we’ll see a lot of these itemsironed out. As for the above list, anyone have any ideas on how to make someof that stuff work?
Want more lists of things Apple can touch up? Check out AaronLandry’s TenThings Apple Could Quickly Fix With the iPhone
