Requisite iOS 8 wishlist
This is just a list of the personal pain points that I have at least a tiny hope of seeing fixed. I’ll assume that Apple aren’t going to get better (or more open) at cloud services. So asking for an iMessage that works, or that will also work on Android (I avoid things that lock me into a single platform nowadays) is a non-starter. Likewise, there are things I’d like that are never going to happen (choosing the default camera app, choosing the default web browser, relaxed app review). From most-likely (?) to least-likely:
- I’d like to see which apps are using all my battery. Mavericks grew this last year. There’s a “that’s too much information” argument, but the phone will already tell break down cell data usage by app - to me, knowing what’s using battery seems more useful than that.
- Stop home screen icons auto-arranging, so you can leave gaps between icons.
- Make the notification settings screen not awful. Just sorting the list of apps would help. But also removing the pointless distinction between the two lists, and letting me see which apps can (eg) make noise without having to tap on every single one.
- I want to be able to share links and images to WhatsApp (this is an end-run around iMessage). I want “links” and “images” to be treated as special objects, and let third party apps register to handle them. (On Android this has led to abuse but this is mostly because of the naïve implementation there.) Sharing links to Pocket from any app without needing special integration, sharing images to Instagram direct from the camera app, whatever. This doesn’t even need full-on XPC, just launching the other app and sending a file will do it. 90% of the infrastructure is already there.
- As a developer, I’d like to see code signing requirements relaxed a little. I’d like to see closed beta testing for apps that doesn’t require collecting UUIDs and managing devices and having to turn people away because you might hit your 100 device limit*. I spend days fighting this rubbish. And it stops no piracy because people who want to do that are just jailbreaking their devices.
- I’d like to know if I just pressed “snooze” or “stop” on the alarm, so I know if it will go off again 5 minutes after I get in the shower.
* The 100 device limit is clearly not taken seriously in Apple because you’re supposed to get an enterprise cert. The $100/year developer level is for toy developers. If you’re doing anything serious at all, you’re doing beta testing with an enterprise certificate. That’s why Apple don’t care about solving that problem - no-one they care about has that problem.