Monday
Mar162009
iPhone OS 3.0 Wishlist
Monday, March 16, 2009 at 06:41AM
Tomorrow, Apple will be showing a sneak peek at iPhone OS 3.0. I have a few hopes, both as a developer and as a user.
As a Developer, I really want to see:
I hope Apple doesn't waste resources implementing a Dashboard-esque HTML5+JavaScript API. I don't see that it's needed, except to one-up Palm.
As an iPhone user:
It's worth noting, too, that Apple have made some good improvements to the App Store recently. In particular, reviews are now tied to specific versions of the software and apps have "all time" and "this version" ratings.
I remain disappointed that the approval process continues to appear abitrary and capricious, but it is at least starting to become sufficiently clear where the 'safe zone' is. That safe zone has also dramatically expanded to include even bad-taste apps that let you jiggle virtual boobs.
I'm starting to think about new iPhone projects, where I can have a high degree of confidence that the app will be accepted. Don't have anything to announce, but the gears are turning again.
As a Developer, I really want to see:
- UIMapView - the internals of the Maps application made available to all developers. There are significant licensing issues around this - Google only allows free use of the Maps API to free-to-access websites. If Apple could work something out with Google for its developers, that would be huge.
- Enhancements to the interapplication URL launching system. Right now, I can't determine whether a URL will be handled before launching it, which is a poor user experience.
- I'd like to see some way in which applications using UITabBarController can also have a toolbar. Currently, many apps abuse the notion of perceived stability to dynamically hide and show a UITabBarController. I'd like to see some new UI element to help this situation.
- Provide a sync API to the Mac. Requiring every developer to build their own sync mechanism is an insane drain on collective resources.
- Implement styled text rendering without requiring UIWebView.
- Provide API for developers to lock out the Home button. This is important for games for very young children (who just love the clicky clicky).
- Make the camera and the photo roll easier to deal with. Preserve EXIF data.
I hope Apple doesn't waste resources implementing a Dashboard-esque HTML5+JavaScript API. I don't see that it's needed, except to one-up Palm.
As an iPhone user:
- Fix springboard. The current design of pages-of-apps simply doesn't scale. I argue for one page of icons, for the most valuable apps, and a second page of drill-down navigation into user-defined groups of apps. I don't think there's anything I care about more than this from a user's point of view.
- Copy and paste. It's been an interesting experiment to see how long we could live without this staple feature, but that experiment has failed. Implement it.
- Make screen rotation happen faster.
- Make the lock screen show more information, such as appointments, missed calls, last few emails. Also provide API for this.
- Let the user decide which app is launched with a double-tap of the Home button. I want it to launch the incredibly awesome Favorites, not Phone.
It's worth noting, too, that Apple have made some good improvements to the App Store recently. In particular, reviews are now tied to specific versions of the software and apps have "all time" and "this version" ratings.
I remain disappointed that the approval process continues to appear abitrary and capricious, but it is at least starting to become sufficiently clear where the 'safe zone' is. That safe zone has also dramatically expanded to include even bad-taste apps that let you jiggle virtual boobs.
I'm starting to think about new iPhone projects, where I can have a high degree of confidence that the app will be accepted. Don't have anything to announce, but the gears are turning again.
Reader Comments (5)
That's a good list. I'm sure we will see the frameworks mature more. I'd personally like to see setIndexHidden: public, the amount of code to work around that is a pain and my best efforts can fall apart if the user goes too crazy. I just want a nice interface akin to Contacts.
The other things I'd like to see is the redeemable codes for applications to work on any country's store. Rankings based on some sort of formula, there is something to be said for an application making a lot of revenue, but then there is something to be said for an application being downloaded thousands of times more. Finally tie seed access to the firmware to ADC membership or something, the random group with spots for high profile developers needs to go. It's hard to take the platform serious when my first chance to run my applications on the new firmware is the same time as the general public. If there is an issue it leaves my users in a bind until I can fix it, get the update to Apple and they approve it.
I agree with your suggestions -- particularly the sync API. I also would like to see the following improvements made in the API:
- More control over the movie player
- More codec support in the movie player
- Provide "official" API access to:
- "glass" style buttons
- calendar data
- controls in alerts
- a better SQLite API (ala SQLitePersistentObjects?)
- a better API for detecting system capabilities (ie. 3G vs EDGE detection, ability to handle "tel:" URLs, and as you mentioned, check for any registered URL handlers).
Great list and comments! I'd love to be able to lock the Home button, I think Android has that sort of feature, but I don't think Apple is going to allow it. I'll probably just hack some kind of cover for the button to be able to entertain my two year old with (some) peace of mind. Maybe the solution would be something similar to what Evernote is doing with their recommendation of the Clarifi case.
On the user side I think desktop Mail and iPhone Notes need to be able to talk to each other. Some kind of SMS backup would be nice too.
One more thing, though I highly doubt we will see this tomorrow or anytime soon. It would be nice for their to be an upgrade path. It's still a few months off, but in my pipeline I have version 2.0 for an application. It is going to add a lot of value to the product and require some investment that I'm going to need to repay. I can't just grandfather in my existing users to this functionality, but I would like to give them a discounted price to keep up-to-date.
Multitasking. That would be all, thanks.