iOS5 : Discussion of Rumors, what you wish for, and the facts (when we know 'em) (1 Viewer)

Apple's next mobile operating system, iOS 5 is due this summer if they keep to convention. And rumors are there will be a preview perhaps as early as next week. Until then, we can talk rumors and wishes.


What I really want, what I really want, is just this: an improved calendar. iOS calendars is worse than what Palm was doing a decade ago. It's useable, but lacking. The missing details include:


* Week view

* More than a gray dot on a gray square to note events in Month view. Palm used three dots, of three colors to indicate Morning, Afternoon, and Evening events at glance. As simple as it was, it was superior in all ways to Apple's design.

* Apple should steal the Pre's (webOS's) day view: that collapsing accordion design is brilliant!

* More Alert options. Desparately need a "90 minutes before" alert

* More alerts. I need two alerts for many things, such as a day-before warning and a two-hour time-to-go alarm.

* Repeating options needs the full flexibility of the desktop client



Notications: I see a lot of words spilled on this topic online, but for me..."meh". Better would be good, but it's not a big deal to me.


This won't happen...I want replaceable app architecture so that I can replace Apple's integrated apps with 3rd-party apps. For example: if Apple won't give me an improved calendar, I want to buy a calendar from the app store. But I don't right now because all calendar functions from other apps will launch the iOS Calendar app. Likewise, I'd like to be able to swap out Safari or YouTube for another app.



Voice Control. Current voice control is a joke. It's great for phone calls, but a cruel joke for anything else. It never gets music requests right. Fix that.


Voice Control 2: Integrated speech to text input for all input boxes. (Steal from Google)


Live Lock Screen: I don't need much, but something. The next three calendar events. Items on my ToDo list. (see also Architecture, so I can plug my preferred ToDo app into the lock screen system.) Notice I didn't ask for current weather or latest Facebook posts. I want something lightweight that's not running in the background, using GPS and wifi / 3G to update and draining the battery. I want useful information that's keeping with Apple's battery-at-all-costs design ethos.


That'll do me for now

More wishes


Syncing for 3rd party apps through iTunes.


Useful iPod controls in landscape mode. (Please, please, kill Coverflow. What a waste of screen space and not at all what I expect when I'm in the player control screen.)

Tight integration with streaming services... One theory: http://www.macstories.net/stories/the-big-data-center-theory/

Big rumors, including a Fall release for iOS 5 http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/26/ios-5-likely-pushed-to-the-fall-after-a-cloud-unveiling-at-wwdc/

* In keeping with the new Cloud service, it would be beneficial if iOS5 provided for a local folder hierarchy with a Finder utility. This would make it easier for iOS5 devices to share data files with Desktop/Laptop PC's. (Sort of like 'Dropbox', but better integrated across all apps via the OS.) The integrated Finder would allow for database backups of Bento tables, for example, to the "Locker".


* We also keep hearing that iOS5 will allow for "Return to Home Screen" gestures which would not require the pressing of the 'Home' button to get back to the Home Screen. In fact, some of the rumors state that iPhone 5/iPad 3 may not have *any* physical buttons at all.

iOS is all about file encapsulation. Other than media files I wouldn't dxpdct to see much more than rudimentiary file exposure

Looks like the iOS Fall rumor is pretty solid. I'm a registered Dev and got the wwdc email: focus on future iOS developments. And DF and LoopInsight expand on this.

Works for me:


http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/03/rumor-voice-controlled-cloud-streaming-lte-iphone-this-fall.ars

Interesting. I hope any Siri-related goodness in iOS 5 works on my "4". I didn't realize until recently that I was SOL if i lost music. I assumes was like apps. Hopefully apple can knock sense into the RIAA. MobileMe ? Hoping for something good and cheap, but apple hasn't demonstrated googles skills in the online services.

Um, you know Amazon launched their cloud music service today, right?

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1543596&highlight=


http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/03/amazon-beats-apple-google-with-launch-of-unlisnced-cloud-music-locker-player-.html

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/Is_Amazons_Cloud_Locker_really_an_innovation.php

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/28/amazon-cloud-player-ios/

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/29/amazon-cloud-player-goes-live-streams-music-on-your-computer-an/

Years ago before I backed up my machines religiously, I had a hard drive with all of my music go belly up. I e-mailed Apple about it and they gave me a link that let me re-download all my purchased songs (over 200 at that time) for no cost. There were a few songs that were no longer available on iTunes and I was SOL with those, but for the rest...well, I guess Apple didn't care about licensing agreements with the music labels back in those days. Either that or the licenses were changed when Apple moved to DRM-free music sales.

I'm on vacation and getting most of my tech updates from you, Sam And DaringF, which has been sparse lately.

No one knows if the crash-recovery music restore is part if their music contracts, something done on the sly, or what. But it seems a special service given when a customer specially requests it. It doesnt serm a universal, anytime feature like built-in re-download for apps. Apple takes care of their customers. And wants to do it even better.