After watching the WWDC keynote where Apple previewed iOS 5, I couldn’t help but wonder why Apple has yet to bring the following essential features to iOS 5…
1. User Accounts (iPad Specific)
If you own an iPad I’m sure you know how popular it is with family and friends who wish to use it to check their email, Facebook, and browse the web.
The problem is that you’re signed in with your accounts on all your apps and services so if someone other than yourself uses it, well, your information is in their hands.
However, there’s a simple solution, user accounts. If iPad’s had some sort of user account mechanism where you can log out the iPad and allow others to use it, would make it an indispensable item in any household and business.
2. Facebook Integration
I know Apple has had their share of disagreements with Facebook, but opting for Twitter instead of Facebook or both is just plain crazy.
Facebook boasts over 600 million active users and is used by a demographically broad user base…I mean you don’t see grandpa tweeting all the time, do you?
Facebook integration is a must, otherwise Twitter will go unused in many iPhones/iPads.
3. Broader Printer Support
I lost track of the number of emails that I get from users visiting this site regarding this issue. iOS only supports a select set of printers and leaves out a lot of other printers that are relatively new.
When testing iOS 4 they initially had this feature working through a Mac/PC, but later shelved the feature in favor of specific PC/Mace-free printers.
I think that they should bring that feature back in iOS 5 so that some of us, myself included can use our two-year old printers with iOS devices.
4. More Camera Options
Gridlines? Seriously?! What about color balance, white balance, and a slew of other options that Android phones have been sporting for quite a while?
I don’t include the red-eye reduction here because that’s editing and not related to taking a shot.
If gridlines is the only significant feature included in Camera, then I must say this is a pretty lame update for one of the most used apps on the phone.
5. Additional Formatting Options for Emails
All you get is Bold, Italics, and Underline. Will take care of a lot of emails on the iPhone, but what about the iPad?
If you’re looking to to replace your laptop/desktop with an iPad for all your email needs then these three formatting options will not suffice.
I only point this out because I am a heavy iPad user for emails and it’s frustrating how limited email formatting options are.
6. RTF Formatting for Signatures
If they introduce formatting for emails, why not do the same for the signatures that tag along your messages.
Otherwise you will have to sit there and edit the signature to format your name or title…again mostly on the iPad, but welcomed on the iPhone as well.
This is one of those options that I hope makes it into the final release of iOS 5.
7. Ability to Use Multiple Signatures
Most of us live in a world where one email address is not enough, especially if your iPhone doubles up for work and personal use.
Including this option would make our emailing lives much simpler.
8. Email Distribution Lists
This is another one of those topics that I get a lot of emails about. The use of distribution lists in iOS.
If you’re using your iPad for work and would like to email a group of people, say 25 individuals, you would have to add their email addresses one by one. There’s no way for you to pull a group and add them to the list of recipients.
Sure, dragging an email address to the To: field is cool, but what we really need is the ability to send group emails.
9. User Accessible Folder Structure
So Apple doesn’t want users to access the folder structure in iOS, but what about Apps. Can you at least allow apps to share files between each other?
I know this would probably put a lot of apps out of business, but this is such a basic feature that should be part of any operating system.
10. Multi-tasking Gestures for iPhone
I’m a huge fan of multi-touch gestures on my Mac and now the iPad, but can we bring some of those multi-tasking gestures to the iPhone?
It would make it a lot easier to use, at least for some of us.
Apple promises over 200 new features in iOS 5 and only showcased 10, so there’s a possibility that some of these will be included in the final build of iOS 5. We’ll just have to wait and see.
What do you think? Are these valid features that iOS should have? Sound off in the comments section below.
