Improving on iOS 8 and leaving new stuff for iOS 10 is the most appropiate way Apple can keep their supremacy

Feb 10, 2015 22:43 GMT  ·  By

I used to say iOS 6 was great and then iOS 7 came and the previous version seemed old and ugly. iOS 7 had issues, bugs, strange icons, colors and transparencies. Fortunately, iOS 8 fixed all of that.

So will iOS 9 be a sacrifice release, with some new stuff and some new issues? Aren't we all tired of bugs?

Who cares about "iOS versus Android"?

The mobile OS war is not over, but the user doesn't care about that anymore. This is not a game of copying features and ideas, but a story about improving their own stuff. Back when iOS 2 didn't have copy/paste, there were some limitations. Yes, some of us made fun of that and it all went away like it never happened. iOS is strong now because it is an OS made for a device, not the other way around.

If you have an iPhone, an iPad and a Mac, it's difficult to switch to another platform. Windows may provide the "one OS for all devices" idea, but their platform is way behind iOS and the ecosystem is not convincing enough for developers. Having strong features like Continuity makes it even better for an iPhone and Mac user to be happy with the devices. iOS 8 solved most of the problems iOS 7 used to have and now it's just a matter of improving on that.

iOS 8.3 is more important than iOS 9

The Apple watch is going to change some of the way things work. It comes with a brand new OS and interface and it works because of its connection to the iPhone. Apple has already showed some of the apps that will be on the watch and we know that it will all come in an update of iOS 8, in April of 2015.

I believe iOS 8.3 or whatever the version number will be will mark the first step forward for this OS. Apple will not only improve on it but also add new functionality to the phone.

As iOS becomes a more complicated operating system, Apple faces the need to find solutions for the Watch to work by itself and not as an appendix of the iPhone. We all know the Watch will drive iPhone sales and having an iPhone in the pocket will eventually make Apple users go for a Watch, but the game cannot last more than two years.

iOS 9 - just an improved iOS 8?

There's not much Apple engineers can do to add new and amazing functionality to the iOS 9. We've learned from the past: when iOS is great, OS X lacks behind. Apple even started to name their events with something like "Back to Mac" because for a couple of years they had all their engineers working on iOS.

Now that OS X is doing great, Apple will not rest on its laurels. They will most probably continue to have a yearly release cycle for iOS and OS X and that takes a lot of resources. Having the Watch in the same equation makes it even more difficult for the Cupertino Team to concentrate on new features.

And that is Great! Why, you ask... Well, because iOS 8 is pretty awesome as it is and just by adding small things it can be even better. Why change something that just works?

Notifications Center is up next

Having widgets in iOS 8 made it a lot cooler. Apple had some issues with the developers that were trying to add things that were supposedly not allowed to be in Notifications Center. And that is the first rule than needs to go away. They should let users decide whether they want to have a calculator, or a notes app or any other feature residing in the widgets area.

I can hardly use three widgets in the Today view and that is totally not enough. Scrolling through widgets gets cumbersome and it defeats the purpose of glanceable notifications. Don't even get me started about the Notifications for different apps. Just by having IFTTT and Gmail sending me new stuff in there, it fills up 2-3 pages of notifications.

So here's my list about the drop down menu: 1. Apple needs to allow users to change Notifications sounds for each app. 2. The iPad widgets area needs to be different than the iPhone one and more like the old widgets on the Mac.  3. Take the unimportant stuff out. And I'm talking about the text on the bottom of the Today list view - "Weather information is provided by The Weather Channel LLC." I could be using that for another widget. 4. The Big "Edit" button at the bottom needs to go as well.

Control Center can be perfect

There are currently five round buttons/toggles at the top of Control Center: Airplane Mode, WiFi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb and Rotation Lock. Why on Earth am I not allowed to replace some of those with others? And I'm not even talking about 3rd-party apps or toggle, but just the iOS ones. I must have pressed the Airplane Mode toggle once in the past year and a half, and the Rotation Lock one was never even touched.

I don't need to scroll through a list of 15 toggles, but let me choose the ones I want to have in there. A 3G one would be nice, for example.

Another issue I have with those toggles is related to the fact that you can only turn them ON and OFF. How about a long press on the WiFi button to let me choose the network? It can happen right there, on the spot or in the Settings app. What if I long press the Bluetooth button and I want to choose among a headset or a speaker? Or how about letting me put a timer to the Airplane Mode button?

The buttons on the bottom of Control Center may be another type of space wasted and non-customizable. OK, the light toggle is really useful. I don't even need to look at the phone to activate it. Same with the camera one. But I use the Calculator only about once a week and I have never used a Timer.

The AirDrop and AirPlay buttons are taking some precious space in there as well. How about letting me choose to disable them completely from the Control Center and use that space for something else.

It would also be nice to have the option of adding Podcast player controls in there. I know the player is universal, but maybe I want to switch from playing music to a podcast and I want to do it all from there.

The apps that come with iOS

It's going to be nine years since iOS came out. It's about time some of the apps are not included with the OS. I've never used Stocks, Reminders, Game Center, Newsstand, Passbook, Notes, Health, Contacts, Tips and Compass. Why do I still have to make a folder on the last page of the Home screen just to hind them? It's about time Apple faces some competition and puts everything in the AppStore.

Sure enough, they can preinstall them, but let the users choose whether they want to keep it or not. I'm pretty sure we can survive without the default Compass or Game Center app.

When the Watch is going to come out, we will have a Watch app on the iPhone. What if I never get a Watch?

On the other hand, iPad still doesn't have the Weather app. If you want to see the forecast on the Today's view there's no way to do that unless you install a 3rd-party app. That seems a bit strange after the release of iPhone 6 Plus and iPad Mini. The size difference of the two devices is not that big anymore, so why wouldn't Apple put an app like that on the iPad?

Disturb me... my way

Do Not Disturb is a great feature. The iPhone needed that, but Apple has the opportunity of improving it a lot. I have already mentioned the idea about long pressing the toggle in the Control Center to get to that. It would be nice to have an option to choose from Manual and Scheduled right from the same toggle.

How about going deeper into that field and choose between what kind of Notifications are allowed to go through. Let me have SMS, but kill the ones from Facebook, Twitter or Mail for the next 3 hours. That should not be too difficult to implement, right?

You now get the option of not silencing the second call from the same person within three minutes. Can we just use that with Favorites or Family members and ignore the others?

Finer grain controls are a headache for users, but maybe Apple can just toggle a menu at the end of each Settings part, call it "Advanced" and put these ideas in there. It's not like I'm going to fiddle with that every day. It's something I'll setup in the first day I get my phone and then forget about it.

New features ideas for iOS 10. Or will it be iOS X?

Having profiles on the iPad is a must for iOS 10. The iPad is not a personal device, but something you can share with your kids or a friend that comes by and needs a device for light web browsing. That is a new feature and it will be awesome for the rumored iPad Pro.

Being able to clean restore your iPhone or iPad and get the settings from different apps restored would be great as well and it will get rid of a lot of headaches for beginners.

Talking about headaches, the most important improvement Apple can make as of iOS 9 is a better QA check before an update comes out. Yes, we know there are more devices to support now, but it's unacceptable to have so many bugs that can even render a brand new device unusable.

Now let's throw this ball in your court. What would you like to have in iOS 9?