Looks like the Apple news isn’t going to stop this week with the iPad launch. An invitation-only event to expose the iPhone OS 4 is scheduled for April 8 so all those new iPad owners will have another reason to be happy with their new purchase since it’s going to get even better.
My expectations/wish list falls into just a few points:
Unified inbox - very high likelihood given Steve Jobs’ curt reply to this question recently I fully expect to see Mail undergo some improvements.
Improved notification services - medium likelihood, but Apple is certainly aware that the current implementation leaves much to be desired. I’m still fuzzy on just how this can be done effectively within the constraints of the current UI, but perhaps something similar to Growl would permit the display of notifications. The biggest issue is that the current UI model is full screen so that there are no reserved spaces for manipulating and storing things like notification messages. Obviously they can’t change this drastically since that would impact the design of applications that currently use all of the available screen real estate. Curious to see how this will be addressed.
Location or user managed profiles - the iPhone needs something akin to the Network Location Manager to quickly set up a set of preferences optimized for a given location. When I’m at the house or the office, I do want Wifi turned on, but when I’m commuting it’s just a useless battery drain. Push mail is not always useful - it would be nice to have a “night” setting where I disable push mail, but leave Wifi and 3G. I’d also like a to set a travelling profile where I know I’m going to be away from easy methods of topping up the battery so I want Push disabled and switch to Edge for maximum battery life. At the movies and in meetings I want to go to silent mode, etc.
I’d like a quick way to set various preferences with one app on the main screen and a set of buttons for each profile to quickly and easily choose one. Likelihood - slim to medium.
Honestly that’s currently all I really want/need my iPhone to get in addition to what it already does quite nicely. That said, there’s one more item that will likely show up in some form or another:
3rd Party App Backgrounding - medium to high. Personally, I don’t see an immediate need for my current use cases, but then I don’t use Pandora or any other streaming music services since my music and podcast playing needs are amply met by iTunes locally on the iPhone, but I do know this is something a lot of people are crying out for. I suspect that this option may be limited to current 3GS models and the iPad or maybe even just the next generation of iPhones and the iPad due to the limited amount of memory available on the older models.
A few other ideas that popped into my head that would be nice, but
Unified document management APIs - this isn’t really a priority for the iPhone, but from what I gather about the iPad, this will become more and more important if Apple’s serious about the iPad staking out a space in the content creation arena. iTunes syncing is OK, but in many cases, you’ll be needing better integration with third party cloud tools like DropBox (which could also benefit from background monitoring and better event notifications).
Full wireless sync - Another nice to have, but not currently critical feature for me, although if this could be linked to MobileMe’s Back to My Mac features so that you can be assured of remote backups of your iPhone even when you’re travelling, this could be a killer feature.
Other stuff that would be nice but not absolutely necessary would be an upgrade to the iTunes remote application so that it can also work as an Airtunes speaker. I use Airtunes currently and it’s nice, but I haven’t yet been able to justify putting speakers in all the rooms of the house so it would be nice to activate the Remote App and have it optionally play back locally so that I can monitor my smart lists like “Songs to rate” even when I’m in the kitchen or on the veranda. But that’s an application layer adjustment, not part of the core OS.