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Things I would love to see in iOS 5

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Re: Things I would love to see in iOS 5

#11

Post by aditya42 »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #2

A big feature conspicuously absent from iOS is a unified documents folder accessible by all apps, and some basic file management capabilities. It would preferably be mounted as a virtual mass storage device when you plug in the USB cable. Here's hoping this'll be one of the features of 5.0.

A better feature would be to make documents created by apps searchable via spotlight. Files are bound to apps anyway, it shouldn't matter to users WHERE they're stored, as long as they can search for them (which is infinitely superior) and open them.

Re: Things I would love to see in iOS 5

#12

Post by aditya42 »

tesmar wrote: post #8
cube wrote: post #6

While I see the use of changeable text in icons, like the calendar app employs, why would anyone want to have animated icons? Perhaps it would be an "eye candy" thing to show off with for 10 seconds, but I'm sure it would be annoying in the long run. Any ideas for reasonable uses of animated icons?

Yes, Statsheet was denied putting 345 apps in the store for each college basketball team. If we are only allowed to have one app, then the user could choose which team is theirs, and then the front Icon would change to represent their team.

A static icon change would achieve the same thing. You don't need animated icons for that.

To OP of this thread: It was another idle comment. The crux of the request was in boldface.

Re: Things I would love to see in iOS 5

#13

Post by abstractmonkey »

bruceboughton wrote: post #5

That the author suggests that, since the iPad has a landscape homescreen, this could just be enabled for iPhone shows a lack of appreciation of Apple's design sensibilities that pervades this article. Just because the iPad has it doesn't mean it doesn't need designing for the iPhone. Furthermore, the iPhone is primarily a portrait device. The iPad, not fitting easily in one hand, is as much a landscape device as it i…

I agree that I would prefer they don't add in landscape home page. As it is, most people have developed a certain flipping technique for rotating their phone in their hand, which is much harder to do with an iPad. And once you introduce a landscape home screen, then you can't use spatial memory to launch apps anymore. Personally, I would prefer that the iPad used a 4 x 4 set of icons for just this reason. Icons are always in different positions and I need to search rather than know where they are using memory. In contrast, My finger is on the correct icon instantaneously on the iPhone.

Re: Things I would love to see in iOS 5

#14

Post by abstractmonkey »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #2

A big feature conspicuously absent from iOS is a unified documents folder accessible by all apps, and some basic file management capabilities. It would preferably be mounted as a virtual mass storage device when you plug in the USB cable. Here's hoping this'll be one of the features of 5.0.

I think what you'll see is an extension of what's done in the calendar app in iOS 4. That is, the calendar database is a specialized database just for calendar, other apps can access and modify it, and it syncs with the cloud and all your devices.

I think you will see the same thing for many other types of databases, but they will all be dependent on type. The databases already there are music, contacts, notes, PDFs in iBook, epubs in iBooks. I think you'll see the full ability to access and modify those databases, and full cloud syncing of them as well. But, they will still be different and separated by file type or task.

Re: Things I would love to see in iOS 5

#15

Post by sanj »

aditya42 wrote: post #12
tesmar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Statsheet was denied putting 345 apps in the store for each college basketball team. If we are only allowed to have one app, then the user could choose which team is theirs, and then the front Icon would change to represent their team.

A static icon change would achieve the same thing. You don't need animated icons for that. To OP of this thread: It was another idle comment. The crux of the request was in boldface.

Changing the icon would make it significantly harder for me to scan and find what I'm trying to run. I worry that it'd be abused with a POTD concept or some such nonsense.

A tighter implementation would be a limited amount over overlay that was configurable -- like the alert # but with more control. The important point being that the underlying icon that I scan for still being available.

MacOS uses this in a number of places to identify download, symlinks and the like.

Re: Things I would love to see in iOS 5

#16

Post by haribilalic »

extension wrote: post #7
jankassens wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A unified documents folder just doesn't work as seen on OSX. Most filetypes are bound to a specific application anyway, so there's no point in a cluttered unified folder.

Why would it be cluttered? It could work just like Settings. Apps with their own document type register as such with the OS. The "Documents" app shows a list of those apps and each one leads to a list of documents for that app. From this list, users can open, rename, delete, attach to an email, and so on. Apps would not be allowed to dump internal junk in their document folder, only stuff the user creates and knows e…

If documents are categorised by apps, why have a separate browser for them instead of keeping them in the app? If I want to view my Pages documents, I'd open Pages not Documents or whatever it might be called.p

Re: Things I would love to see in iOS 5

#17

Post by tesmar »

aditya42 wrote: post #12
tesmar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Statsheet was denied putting 345 apps in the store for each college basketball team. If we are only allowed to have one app, then the user could choose which team is theirs, and then the front Icon would change to represent their team.

A static icon change would achieve the same thing. You don't need animated icons for that. To OP of this thread: It was another idle comment. The crux of the request was in boldface.

Does the current version of iOS support static icon changes?

Re: Things I would love to see in iOS 5

#19

Post by extension »

haribilalic wrote: post #16
extension wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be cluttered? It could work just like Settings. Apps with their own document type register as such with the OS. The "Documents" app shows a list of those apps and each one leads to a list of documents for that app. From this list, users can open, rename, delete, attach to an email, and so on. Apps would not be allowed to dump internal junk in their document folder, only stuff the user creates and knows e…

If documents are categorised by apps, why have a separate browser for them instead of keeping them in the app? If I want to view my Pages documents, I'd open Pages not Documents or whatever it might be called.p

Lots of great reasons:

1. The user can manage all their stuff in one place with consistent functionality across all apps.

2. The OS can implement generic file handling features like search, share, backup, sync, etc.

3. It paves the way for standard file types that can be handled by multiple apps, or apps that can work with any type of file, like Dropbox.

The power of filesystems is well understood and I'm sure Apple could create one instilled with their magical UX and just-worksiness. But they won't do it because I think they are afraid of 3rd party apps becoming too useful. They don't want anyone else creating an ecosystem that they don't control. But Google and RIM are happy to do that and I hope they establish a higher standard of utility that Apple is forced to live up to.

Re: Things I would love to see in iOS 5

#20

Post by gaiusparx »

- API to run some form of background task as needed - Revamp notification, maybe notification centre - API to change home screen icon. - API for NFC as it is rumored to be in iPhone 5 hardware - Spotlight API for app content searchable under spotlight - AirPlay 2 - api to push screen to AppleTV and convert iphone/ipad as controller, make it easy to support this functionality in games - API for social liking and following, Apple'own social networking build into iOS 5 and Lion - Apple Messages/Chat, telco independent sms?
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