Yet the problem with your phone doing all of this location-aware intelligence is that you wind up with the dead-battery he started his article out with.<p>Whenever I read articles like this one I'm left wondering whether my life is distinctly different from most. I generally have a pretty good idea about my calendar - where I'll be going that day, and what restaurant I'll grab a bite to eat in if that's part of my agenda.<p>These services built around finding a great noodle shop in some far-flung town are neat demonstration-cases, but to me they're about as useful as "Hotel Tonight". In my life, I don't ever anticipate winding up in a new city without knowing where I was going to sleep that night beforehand.<p>Maybe I just plan differently because I've needed to up until now - or maybe this is the start of an evolution that I'm already beyond - but given the choice of a phone whose battery lasts all day so I can find things when I want them versus a phone that's dead by 3pm because it's been busy coming up with the top 5 museum exhibits I won't have time to go check-out, I'll always pick the former.
My #1 wishlist item, which would be easy to implement, is "guest mode" -- let me hit a button on the lock screen (or elsewhere) which lets me loan someone my phone briefly without any personalization or sensitive data. A standard web browser, phone app, etc. Maybe let me customize what apps are available in "limited mode". This matters even more on an iPad, which I'm generally willing to share, vs. my phone, which I won't let out of my sight due to fear of missing a call.<p>This would be for:
1) Loaning someone my phone briefly
2) Kids -- you might want to lock the phone down to a single app. (or, for me, lock the phone to a single cat toy application for cats)
3) Theft -- if someone steals my device, it would be nice to remotely drop it into "browser and email only" to keep him online so I can continue to location-track and then order pipehitter as a service to recover the device.
I have one wish: that the iOS programmers at Apple learn how to write efficient concurrent code and that they stop leaning on the next, faster, generation processor so hard that any phone that is just one generation older than the leatest and greatest becomes slow as shit.<p>My iPhone used to be fast. Most things used to be snappy. Now it is slow as shit. From the address book lookups (which I have timed to usually clock in at 8-9 seconds, but which can take as long as 20 seconds) to the atrocious piece of penguin dung that is the podcast app. Seriously, Apple could not have created a shittier app if they had hired a bunch of Microsoft engineers to bang their foreheads on keyboards for 88 hours.<p>iOS software is fucking slow.<p>(Firing Scott Forstall to stop the skeuomorphic wankery was a good start. Now they need a real software engineering director to beat some sense into the engineers and to make sure they have "Concurrency 101" under their belt before writing another line of code)
They need to have a way to set defaults for different types of apps too, coming from android that's incredibly infuriating. Also intents. Oh, and fix the complete mess that is notification centre, it's so cludgy and awful compared to android - e.g why the hell can't I swipe away individual notifications? Why do I have to clear all or none of them * rage *. (I'm a recent convert to a 4S as I'm putting an app into the store and need to use it).
Sounds a bit like my wishlist for iOS2 and 3. At the time, I wanted to write an app that analysed my call history and show me interesting facts. There were no call log APIs in iOS2, so I wrote an Android version, which at the time became one of the top Android apps. I kept hoping Apple would loosen up, but of course they didn't.<p>Anyway, I wouldn't hold my breath. Doing this would be a big pivot for them and with the amount of money they're raking in, there can't be many urgent calls for this inside the company.
I'd love to be able to actually replace Apple's apps with Google's. When I hit a link I don't want it to open in Safari, I want Chrome. Ditto with Map links. I want Siri to be replaced with Google Voice Search (and for there to be APIs that allow Google to fully replace Siri).
Here's my feature wishlist for iOS7:<p><pre><code> -
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Nothing. I don't want anything new. I'm happy with the current feature set my phone currently has. What I desperately want from iOS 7 is a renewed focus on stability and Not Sucking. There's been a significant amount of additional functionality brought in over the last few releases, but it feels like in terms of stability it's not improved anywhere near as quickly.
Google Now isn't awesome because Google exposed various APIs into their omniscient database. And they're not letting random apps grab 'Now' information for their own purposes either. They haven't played the "Open" card on "Now", at all, that I've seen.<p>So thinking Apple would match it by just opening some APIs is double-unlikely. Particularly not with their reluctance to allow <i>any</i> hooks that third party developers might misuse.<p>If Apple pursued this, they'd develop a first-party solution by more-tightly-integrating the existing first-party apps (Maps/Calendar/Passbook/Siri) and call it a day.<p>A measured step forward on that front is actually more Apple-like and would be less surprising than if they rolled out the more oft-cited requests, like widgets, services, siri API and changeable defaults.<p>Particularly since making Siri "aware" of your immediate future needs/obligations would be a feature multiplier all its own.
>Let us do what we want.<p>Pretty much everyone I know who has ditched iOS has done so because of this reason. Seems to me like the author is just a bit behind and finally caught on.<p>I love the Apple hardware, dislike the closed options I get on iOS.
Personally, the biggest thing for me is file management. I hate it that I can't just connect a device and copy files to and from it via USB.<p>Now, I'm not saying that I need to see every file and folder on the iOS device, but exposing a data folder for each installed application would be a big help.
A more cost-efficient way of ensuring you're ok in OP's scenario (blown out tyre, phone battery dead), than buying an iPhone? Get a charger for your vehicle.
The most interesting thing about iOS7 to me is how Apple will handle the issues around iCloud Documents and data portability between apps. I appreciate they are trying to move away from traditional file systems because I really believe there <i>are</i> better ways of doing things. The problem here is Apple's approach isn't exactly working. In a lot (most?) ways it's actually worse than dealing with a traditional file system. If they can't figure it out for iOS7 I think they need to admit defeat and try something different. A perfect example of this is creating a text document in TextEdit on your Mac. It's utterly useless on your iOS device. You can't access it at all. Sure they could release TextEdit for iOS but that does not solve the real problem or address the problems of portability of data between iOS apps. In my opinion iOS7 is their last shot to get this right. If they can't figure it out dust off iDisk and just go back to the basics. It's annoying to deal with file systems but it works at least.
Google Now is the one feature that will determine whether I switch from iPhone to Android in the next 6 months. If Apple doesn't come up with something comparable in that time frame, they will lose a customer.
I am worried that so much of the "integration" people are calling for is integration with the services of just one company, Google. And most people that want to replace the built-in iOS app defaults want to replace them with Google apps so they can use more Google services. Is that healthy for the web?<p>Now, Google offers the best-in-class web services in a number of domains. But I've never been very fond of many of them, and where Google apps are less than great I prefer to use the alternative--Yelp instead of Google Local, standard IMAP email instead of Gmail, Wolfram Alpha for some searches, etc.<p>To Google's credit, it is easier to use an alternative search engine with Android than it is to use just about any alternative service on iOS. But I don't think we're going to see Google Now integrating with Bing maps or Duckduckgo or Yelp anytime soon.
<p><pre><code> Tell me why I’m an idiot for having this opinion by tweeting @tomdale.
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Off topic, but this is genius.<p>I never understood why everybody copied that "you should follow me" rudeness of a line.<p>Not thinking too high about yourself is how you win people's goodwill.
The holy grail for me (and one that keeps me on iOS) is hardware. Apple knows this, which is why they are so aggressive in patent submission and litigation. Android terrifies them.<p>If Samsung/LG et. al. could make a somewhat more affordable handset with the design ascetics of an Apple device that ran stock Android, it would seriously disrupt Apple's position.<p>I had hope for Intel's concept phone [1], but it doesn't look like it manifested in the way it was originally sold.<p>1. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/intel-medfield-concept-phone-tablet-2011-12" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/intel-medfield-concept-phone-...</a>
What APIs would something like Google Now need that don't currently exist? The only one I can think of is a way to launch it easier, rather than with an icon. But the push and local notifications, geo-tracking, ability to access your Gmail, and even the ability for Google Maps to pre-download map tiles are available to Google on iOS. What else does it need?
> Jellybean has been a dream to use. There are some rough edges, but the moments where I wish I still had my iPhone are few and far between.<p>Totally agree. I was scared ditching my iphone 4 for a Samsung S3 but it's been really great. Plus it has lots of nice encryption features.
Is there something stopping Google from shipping Google Now for iOS? If you use Chrome on iOS they're collecting all sorts of information, you can also pull GPS data etc from G+ on iOS and associate it server-side.<p>You don't get the cool springboard shortcut though.
Google Now sounds interesting but when it comes to digital content apps (kindle, audible, etc), I don't see how shopping in your browser is even an inconvenience. If I bring up Siri and say "Google Game Of Thrones Kindle" I can have the book bought and on my screen with a few taps.
I've recently moved to an iPhone 5 after being on Android for a few years. I'm a heavy Gtalk user & it pains me that there's no official Google app for it on iOS - something I'd love to see.
There's adding enough APIs for google programmers, and adding enough data access for google marketers. I hope we get the first one, but that doesn't mean we'll get Google's apps.
Google Now has been pretty useless for me. Its mostly an annoyance, I'm always having to dismiss its place suggestions and "Time to home/work" notifications.
I think we all need to revert back to the days of 3 sometimes 4 days battery life on old school Nokia's like the Nokia 3315. It's amazing how battery life on phones seems to get progressively worse even though battery technology is better, we're still cramming in battery draining features when all someone needs in an emergency is the ability to make a phone call or send a text, not a web browser, email client and a Facebook app.