Thursday, March 18, 2010

Stuff I'd like to see in iPhone OS 4

There's lots of speculation about what's coming down the pipe in iPhone OS 4. Most of this is related to multitasking, which the current lack of I've never had a problem with.

Some minor features I'd like to see though are:

1) Location aware wi-fi setting. Unlike many world cities the wifi coverage here in Sydney, Australia is poor. For that reason I tend to have wifi enabled enabled at home and off when out or at work to improve battery life. This means that every day I toggle wifi on and off on my iPhone. Often I forget and am reminded when wifi asks me to join a new network when I'm using Safari. This is a minor annoyance. It would be great if I could make the toggling on/off of wifi automatic based upon a configurable location setting (using AGPS) to say my home or office locations for trusted networks only. When outside of those locations by say 500 metres it would be nice if wifi automatically switched off.

2) I'd like to see some integration between the Calendar and the Contacts in iPhone OS. For example, if I'm setting up an appointmemnt with my dentist currently I either have to enter a title or location but in reality that information I need for this appointment is already stored in my Contacts. If I could make a new appointment and just select a contact (or multiple contacts) rather than having to type in a title or location this would be great.

I don't pretend that either of these suggestions is radical but it is small eveloutionary steps like them that will keep iPhone OS ahead of the rest of the pack.

As previously stated longer term I'm obviously expecting the smartphone to morph into an identity based device that will integrate with my house and car security. I also fully expect it to morph into a credit/payment device. Long term I'd love for my phone to replace the wallet in my pocket (say within 10 years) but for now I'd be happy with the above.

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