iOS8 Wishlist
Geocontext and greater integration.
With the iPhone 6 rumored to launch shortly, I figured I'd give my two cents on how I'd make it better with geo contextualization and cohesive integration between iOS services.
Smart Wifi toggling: iOS5 introduced geo-fencing, allowing us to set up reminders based on our location. Unfortunately it never really took off, but I'd love to see it expanded into permitting Wifi toggling based on location. Home? Wifi-on. Office? Wifi on. Driving? Wifi off. Big plus: Saves battery life and spares mom and dad the hassle of either flipping through to Settings or pulling up the Control Center. Location Services could prove to be a drain on older iPhone models, but newer models boast a second processing unit capable of passive usage.
Address book — Facebook integration: Have you ever glanced at a name in your address book and struggled to pin a face to the name? Better yet, flicking through a seemingly endless list of contacts searching for "that guy I met at the trade show I went to last week at Moscone"? Facebook integration + Calendar and geo give us enough metadata for a smarter Contacts. "Jonathan Korn — you met him at Startup Weekend '12 in Rio de Janeiro" or better yet, search for contacts based on where or when you met them. Mobile-Social-Local should start with Contacts.
Away with the "Missed"tab on the notification center: No one I know uses it really, and it's app centered approach doesn't really make too much sense. I'd much rather merge it with "All" and give it a chronological twist.
Siri API: Adopt some of startup IFTT's culture and you might have a new "recipes"addition to the App Store. Siri never *really* took off, but handing over the reigns to big and small players we could see some fantastic integration initiatives. Apps have been asking me for permissions to access photos, Facebook and location, so why not Siri?
Out with Photostream in with a photo based iPhone social network: Go to a party or an event with more than ten people and lo and behold you have ten different iPhone albums on ten different devices. Currently, photo sharing ranges from intimate ( iMessage or Whatsapp) to social networks saturated with likes and filters(Facebook, Instagram). iOS8 should aim to take context to a new level. Detecting a high level of pictures taken at the same place during the same time frame should prompt the user: "Are you at Bruce Wayne's Birthday party? Would you like to add your photos to the event stream?" Pictures taken at the event get uploaded to a collective album hosted by iCloud. Apple get's more iCloud usage and we don't get a halfbaked chronological feed of all our photos. Much more interesting checking out everyone's pictures than the current alternative showing all my iPhone and iPad photos.
Of course Cupertino is cooking big changes for the upcoming iPhone 6 and iOS7, I do hope that they'll opt to fix familiar features instead of just adding new ones.
