The iPhone OS 4.0 wishlist

We noted a few new features that should be thrown in for the next update as well as a few existing apps that desperately need a makeover.

We've delved into iPhone OS 3.0 and so far, we like what we've seen. But after playing with it all day, we noted a few new features that should be thrown in for the next update as well as a few existing apps that desperately need a makeover.

Notes App Needs a Facelift

The iPhone's Notes app finally syncs with your computer in iPhone OS 3.0, but it's still very bare-bones. Give us the ability to change the font and the background color, at least.

Share with me!

Being able to share your photos via email or MobileMe is well and good, but we'd love to see Apple bring other photo sharing outlets into the fold for iPhone 3.0. Bringing Flickr into the fold would be great; bonus points for adding in support for Facebook and Twitter-friendly image-sharing sites like Twitpic.

Photoediting at your fingertips

With the iPhone 3G S's beefed up camera, iPhone 4.0 should deliver some basic photo editing software. And we'd love to see it utilise the iPhone's multitouch capabilities: Pinch to select, hit a button to crop, and swipe to undo.

Multitasking & push notifications

We loved the Palm Pre's breezy card visualization of handling multiple open applications without it being a drain on performance or battery life (Apple's reasoning for not adding it). While iPhone 3.0's notifications are a step in the right direction, it just isn't the same as true background processing.

Spotlight needs to shine on the Web, too

iPhone 3.0's Spotlight is a great feature for finding apps and contacts quickly, but why shouldn't search expand to the Web, as well? The Palm Pre does this with their Universal Search feature, which allows you to search via Google, Google Maps, Twitter and Wikipedia if your query isn't found natively. We'd like to see something similar in 4.0.

Wallpaper on the homescreen

That adorable picture you snapped of your dog tearing up the neighbor's flowerbed only shows up briefly on the slide to unlock screen or when you're on hold with tech support--and then you're stuck with a boring black background. We'd like to enjoy our wallpaper a bit longer than that.

Bring unity to the inbox

There's a pretty good chance you have more than one email address. There's also a pretty good chance that you use more than one email address with your iPhone. The problem is that as of right now, you have to check each email addresses inbox separately on the iPhone. Why not include a unified inbox where you can check all your email all at once?

More Swipe!

It's a small thing, but it'd be great to be able to use the swipe gesture to remove entries from your recents list, or to delete voicemails on the fly using the iPhone's visual voicemail system (currently you have to tap each voicemail then press the delete button, which works fine, but it isn't as intuitive as you might think, especially when you become accustomed to the swipe gesture).

Surveying the terrain (View)

Another small thing: We really like the Terrain View in Google Maps. The Maps app on the iPhone doesn't support it, though. We would love to see this make an appearance in the next update.

File Browsing

The iPhone is great for checking email on the go. Browsing downloaded file attachments, images, and so on? Not so much. While there are some apps (App Store link--opens in iTunes) that do something similar, a unified file browser for accessing all the files saved to your phone would be a great--and obvious--addition to iPhone OS 4.0. Bonus points if it automatically synced the files back to your computer.

What's on your wishlist for iPhone OS 4.0?

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Tags AppleiPhoneiphone 3giphone 3.0iPhone 3G S

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Nick Mediati and Ginny Mies

PC World (US online)
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