iPhone 3.0 Features I’d Sure Like to See

written 2 May 2009 in the early afternoon

Word amongst yourselves, assuming you and yours are comprised of Apple fanboys, tech writers or gadget geeks, is that iPhone 3.0 is the latest thing to talk about on forums, between D&D sessions and in lieu of washing your hands of swine sickness.

Nifty confirmations include MMS, copy and paste and 3G tethering. Some rumors are claiming video recording and possibly even editing will be possible. But what no single publication has revealed yet is my personal list of upgrades I’d like to see.

  1. The ability to hide Apple’s apps. I’m a bit retentive, anally that is, and like my phone to be nice and neat. I don’t need the clutter that a pointless Contacts application provides, and I desperately want to hide all things Stocks, Weather, Mail, and Photos. I’d particularly like it if there could just be a “hide” feature
  2. Easier WiFi access. I like to leave the option on to search for WiFi networks, but too often the networks don’t actually have Internet access, or they’re those stupid “free” coffee shop networks that make you sign up for an account first. It’d be nice if just tapping on the WiFi/Edge/3G symbol would take you to the Settings > WiFi page. This would also be a relatively easy way to get to the settings page in general, and then you could hide the dedicated icon.
  3. App Plugins. there are cool applications out there like Camera Zoom that would really be better as plugins to the existing Camera app than having their own space-wasting icons. Something like Wikipanion could plug into Safari to tell the browser to always open wikipedia.org articles in that external app.

Sure, video recording (and editing!) would be awesome, in fact, I’m quite surprised it hasn’t been offered as an app yet. But interface improvements are just as important to me as being able to use my iPhone as a Pea Shooter 2000. And, as we all know, it is in fact all about me.

2 people chatting it up...

  • Your second issue, regarding Wifi, was my peeve for a long time until I saw the setting that asks the phone to ask me if any of the available networks are ok. It would default to the aforementioned “free” networks and I’d wonder why I’m not getting my email. Now it asks first, defaulting instead to the Edge (or 3g if you roll that way).
    As for your #1 issue, I can’t imagine why you’d want to hide your photos, weather, or mail. But it is in fact all about you.

    - Brian | 09:31am 6 May 09
  • Well I can access my photos through the camera, both applications offer a link to the other and so to me, they’re really the same app with two icons. I use Gmail instead of Mail, because Gmail is the awesome and I heard Mail has cooties so I never touch the thing.

    And as for weather, I prefer the window method. :) Also, I live in Texas currently and so the weather is pretty much “always sunny”, or if it’s not currently sunny, it will be in 10 minutes.

    - nathan | 10:19am 6 May 09

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