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What the iPhone Needs

Entry 967, on 2009-03-17 at 19:46:53 (Rating 1, Computers)

The latest excitement from the Apple rumour mill is the imminent release of version 3 of the iPhone OS. There is no definitive list of what will be in this release but everyone is making their own thoughts known so I thought I would join the crowd.

OK, let's get copy and paste out of the way first. Yes, everyone wants it and when you consider that it was a major feature of the original Mac 25 years ago it is rather strange that its not there on the iPhone already. On the other hand its actually fairly rare that I need it. But everyone wants it, it will be useful, and it really must be there or Apple will lose a lot of credibility.

Every moderately advanced phone I have owned so far has had the ability to act as a wireless modem for a computer. I lost that ability when I moved to the iPhone and I would like it back. The rumours are fairly strong that it will be included but I just hope there's no extra cost associated with it. If I have a certain amount of data available per month on my current plan and why should it matter whether that is generated directly from the phone or by a computer through the phone?

My previous phones have had the ability to do MMS messages. I might have used that feature about once a year and I can do it more conveniently to other smart phones and computers by email but I still think it should be included in the new OS. Strong rumours indicate it will be included, so that's good news.

Again some of my previous phones could record, store, and send video. There are few occasions I would really use it, but I think we should have it anyway. The camera on the iPhone is on the back so it can't be used to do video calls but I would be happy enough with simple video recording.

Do we need multi-tasking on a phone? The iPhone OS is based on Mac OS X which has great multi-tasking but Apple have effectively disabled that ability, presumably to minimise confusion, save memory, and prolong battery life. The push and monitoring services we were promised about 9 months ago now have not appeared and real multi-tasking would be better anyway. I don't think we'll get it with this phone but the original idea of push services to notify the user of new data would be useful.

Various rumours have indicated Apple and Adobe are working on Flash support for the iPhone. If we can play MPEG and H.264 movies and run Javascript why should we not be able to play Flash as well? Is it because Flash is a really ugly format maybe? While this isn't critical, I still hope it can be resolved in the next OS.

Finally, I want real turn by turn instructions added to the GPS function. The existing functions are useful enough but they aren't up to the standard of even basic dedicated GPS units. I don't expect miracles but a bit of improvement in this area would be nice.

Other features people mention include: landscape keyboard (no big deal but I'll take it anyway), support for stereo Bluetooth headphones (Bluetooth is a pain and I wouldn't use it but, sure, let's have that as well), files storage and transfer (there are good free apps to do this so its not such a big deal), and voice dialing (current efforts at this just don't work for me).

So that's what the iPhone needs. If I get copy and paste, tethering, and some form of multi-tasking or event notification I would be happy. Anything else would be a bonus. The challenge will be to do all this without draining the battery, using all the available memory, or making the user interface too confusing. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what develops but in the meantime I still think the iPhone is a pretty excellent device just like it is.

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