It’s almost here. If you’re reading this article, then you know that iPhone 5 or iPhone(whatever) is getting announced tonight. And the whole year we’ve seen plenty of leaks, rumours and predictions for the next iPhone. But here’s something thats nothing from what we saw/heard/read. Here’s something that I wish my iPhone had regardless of what we are going to see or not see tonight or later. I really didn’t want to publish this article at first as we are so close to the announcement. But then I realised that we’re not going to see any of these features being announced tonight. So, lets jump right in to it:-
Notification Light:
An iPhone that’s in sleep is pretty much dead. You can’t know what happened or what is waiting until you light up the display. This is very difficult while you’ve been away from the phone for a while. Most phones have had these for years. Especially the Galaxy S3 which has come with a new feature. The phone gives a noticeable vibration to alert you of pending notifications when you pick it up after leaving the phone for a while unattended. We’ve seen 5 iPhone iterations till date, but Cupertino boys haven’t felt the need to include this feature yet.
Bluetooth File Share:
Apple should really stand out of the fantasy that everybody uses an iPhone and should understand that there are other people too. Again, we’ve seen five iterations of iPhone till date, yet Bluetooth file share is still a mystery. Its true that we’re living in a world of fast internet and all. But thats not wisest way to share files when there’s a person standing right next to you. Besides, I’m tired of being the jerk with the most expensive phone that can’t share a file via BT. If not Bluetooth, Apple should implement some other possible and commonly used modes to send files to other devices.
SMS Delivery Reports:
Whatsapp and iMessage may be the trending forms of instant messages. But lets face it, they can’t really replace SMS at all. We’ve seen how beautifully iMessage handles iM delivery and read status reports. Yet its a shame to see that the SMS you sent don’t have the same. One has to assume that it might get delivered when in some cases it may not. As long as normal phone calls are going to exist, SMS will also exist.
Contact Share:
Another simple yet one of the most important feature missing from the iPhone is ability to share contacts via sms in vcf format. At the moment, one has to manually copy the number and name to send information to the person on the other end.
Ability To Add Music Outside iTunes:
I recently subscribed to iTunes Match. For those of who are new to this service, iTunes Match scans your music library and finds a match on iTunes server for music files that was added to iTunes via some other sources. You can then replace them by downloading the iTunes version and all these songs gets pushed to your other iOS devices through cloud. Now that we have an option like this, Apple should start letting users add music via other sources on phone as well. At least to those who subscribed to iTunes Match.
Talking about adding music, I also wish if Safari could directly download files to the browser and open it in a 3rd party app. Some touches to notifications to include a music widget and connectivities wouldn’t hurt either. I could really go on, but these are something I really miss the most from my usage. If you’re an iPhone user, tell us what you miss the most.
PS: I know most of these can be fixed through a jailbreak, but that’s not a path I’m willing to take 🙂