Well as you are all probably aware Apple released their new 3.o iPhone software on June 17th. Promising cut & paste, a compass, and global search among other things. According to Apple, one-hundred plus additional features were added. I must admit there are a lot of nice features and I am very happy that such a basic function such as cut & paste was added so by no means will I be complaining the rest of this post. Let’s just think of it as making suggestions from a content point of view. Here are a few things that I notice weren’t a part of the 3.0 upgrade:

1. Sound Customization:

Sure you can purchase a song you have already purchased on iTunes and make it into a ring tone but that can get pricey fast. Where is the custom ring tone feature and why do I have to pay for a song twice to get in into a ring tone? I believe I should be able to convert any of the purchased music on my machine into a custom ring tone. Don’t tell me it’s not possible because I know for a fact it is, because I have done it… 🙂

Also, why is it that I can’t change the alert sound for SMS, e-mail or Calendar events to anything more than the provided with the phone? Comparing to the Blackberry’s settings, I can turn the volume up high and play something obnoxious while I am on-call to ensure I hear the phone. On the iPhone the e-mail notification alert is brief at best, and not customizable. I think that something along those lines could be expected if Apple wants to continue to press the market who is currently using Blackberry’s.

2. Syncing Task List:

Now that the iPhone has progressed through syncing music, then videos, then contacts & calendars, and the latest sync-able native app being notes, wouldn’t it make sense to sync a tasks/to-do list app also? Since most calendar apps used on either a Mac or PC have a built in task/to-do list feature, and there have been many attempts to make a list/task app such as the one I use Zenbe Lists. While Zenbe works great since it can sync over the air, I would still like to see the task list synced with my Outlook giving me the ability to also set due dates for the tasks just like in outlook and notifying me when things come due. This seems like a simple enough idea, not quite sure why Apple didn’t think about this one either.

3. Landscape Home Screen:

iPhone Home Screen

iPhone Home Screen

I love the fact that Mail and SMS are now naturally landscape mode capable. I can type faster, view more of the message preview, edit things faster and so on. The one downside to all this fantastic-ness is when I am switching between apps and I am in landscape mode, and I go back to the home screen to select the next app, the home screen remains in vertical mode, which is not a smooth transition. Why didn’t Apple just make the home screen landscape too??

iPhone Landscape Home

iPhone Landscape Home

To the left you can see the iPhone’s standard home screen. Take a look at how simple it would be for them to rotate each home screen icon and put the navigation bar across the bottom. It is such a logical natural look I am actually puzzled as to why Apple didn’t do this to begin with. I created a mock image of what this might look like just to get a feel for it. I am going to say it Apple. What in the world were you thinking not implementing this idea by now? Don’t tell me that nobody has thought of it before. Are you trying to milk the market and come out with a software update every 5-6 months? To be honest, it really wouldn’t suprise me if this is done already just waiting on a newer release, which is really sad because it could have gone along nicely with the landscape changes made in update 3.0.

4. Push me off a bridge…

Yeah one of the most celebrated changes to the 3.0 update is the ability to use Push notifications in apps so that they can ‘run in the background’. What they don’t tell you is that not all apps are setup for this, in fact there are a small few, and those that are setup for it are more expensive than the originals. I don’t mind so much because I don’t have to be connected to my instant messenger all day like some, but wouldn’t it have been nice to seemlessly transition to a push app versus the old version. I think I may have too high of expectations for this last item. 🙂

All in all, as I have said ealier the 3.0 update is great, just not the greatest. Here’s to 3.5 or whatever Apple decides is the next landmark update.