Simply put: iCloud should sync email signatures stored in Mail between all of your devices. This one seems so obvious that it’s hard to believe it hasn’t happened yet. Talk about low hanging fruit ripe for picking.
Tag Archives: idea
iOS Lock Screen Suggestion
Apple would seem to have responded to the concerns over lock screen navigation in the latest iOS 7 beta (beta 1-3 vs beta 4); however, there is something else missing.
I have a message on the lock screen of my iPhone that contains relevant contact info, which could be helpful in case my phone is taken misplaced. This may not be an official feature of iOS, but it should be.
For OS X v10.7 Lion and above, a lock screen message may be set on any Mac by navigating to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > “Show message when screen is locked” and checking the appropriate box. This allows a line of text to be displayed at the login window without any sort of hacking or manipulation of system files.
How did I accomplish this on the iPhone? It’s actually pretty straightforward: there’s an app for that. In our case, that app is called Contact Lockscreen Info (iTunes Link) and it does what it says on the tin. Don’t let the free download fool you though; there is an IAP (in-app-purchase) of $.99 that allows an assumed feature enables the use of custom backgrounds. I’m sure there are any number of alternative apps out there, but the method is going to be the same. The app takes your desired text and background image, lines everything up, and flattens them together into a new image you set as your background.
A lock screen message is exactly the sort of thoughtful solution that shouldn’t need extra steps or the purchase of a separate app – it should be a part of iOS natively.
iOS Messages Suggestion
The addition of iMessage has been a huge success for Apple, with customers sending billions of iMessages among their iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches and Macs. I’ve read many ways that Apple could improve iMessage; cross ecosystem apps, better group messaging and reliable time stamps across devices, to name a few.
The Messages App itself, though, has seen comparably little improvement since the addition of landscape support. Recently, my spouse inadvertently uncovered an area in need of improvement.
If you have a text or iMessage conversation with multiple numbers for the same contact, it is unclear which is which. So if you message with ‘Jane Work’ and ‘Jane iPhone’ in Messages, you’ll have two threads labeled the as a non-distinctive ‘Jane’.
iOS Messages app should add a quick and visual method to distinguish between two numbers with the same contact. Here are a few suggestions on how this could be accomplished.
One method would be to add the label to the name, so you would see ‘Jane Work’ and ‘Jane iPhone’ in the list view and the conversation view. Another way would be to thread the two. In list view, you would see ‘Jane (2)’ and tapping that would allow you to choose between ‘Work’ and ‘iPhone’, in our example. Lastly, it could be adjusted by color, allowing a user selectable color for any individual conversation in Messages – a popular feature for instant messaging clients.
Any of the above methods would provide a faster and more intuitive way to tell the difference between conversations with different numbers from the same contact.
iOS Mail Suggestion
I never regularly used an email client until 2007. Up until that point, web mail provided the best email experience for my personal email accounts, such as Gmail. I had used several clients in past, including Outlook, Eudora, Lotus Notes and OS X Mail; however, none of them felt easy to use or worth the hassle of set and configuration.
The iPhone changed my relationship with email profoundly: what was once an occasional communications tool suddenly became indispensable. The mobile web interface for Gmail and .Mac at the time was sub par, being optimized for a feature phone WAP browser or altogether non-existent. The Mail app included on the original iPhone removed all of the issues I had with a desktop email client and quickly became my preferred method for reading and composing an email.
The Mail app in iOS has improved quite a lot since 1.0, always proving itself as among the best mobile email clients available. There is, however, one behavior that draws my ire every time I send an email.
When sending an email, the list of suggested or recent recipients starts being shown immediately below when you begin typing in the ‘To:’ field. The intent for this auto-complete feature is to save you time from tapping in a whole address. My problem with this is the inconsistent results it provides. While there are dozens of addresses I have sent email to before, with many more in my contacts, there are two addresses I send more mail to than any other. By far. Why, then, do the auto-complete results change for a given letter? When I type the letter ‘a’, for example, why are the results not the same every time? What algorithm is determining the results and the order they are in?
To improve Mail on iOS, I would very much like to see a method for pinning or tagging an address to the top of the auto-complete list. Either that, or an improved auto-complete that delivers more intelligent, relevant and – above all else – consistent results.
iOS Camera App Suggestion
Apple has a tendency to use the most popular parts, pieces and apps of the jailbreak & developer community to add value to the stock iOS experience. The upcoming iOS 7 does this for example by incorporating a flashlight utility in the new Control Center, instead of the need to acquire a third-party app. This practice was imported from the desktop, where the tradition was known among those developers who had their ideas appropriated as being “Sherlocked.”
I’d like to nominate a category of applications that should be ripe for Sherlocking; bar code scanners. These apps use a devices camera to act as a bar code or QR code scanner, allowing the user to be sent to a website or lookup a products info based on the UPC. A popular example would be Red Laser.
The feature could be added as another mode in the iOS Camera App, and exposed as an API so any developer could have the option of adding the functionality to their camera app. Having the ability to scan 2D codes out of the box would be convenient for end users, and reduce the need to download a single purpose app that is handy yet only occasionally used.
Obviously The Right Idea
Here’s an easy usability tweak that seems obvious to me:
Why not distinguish the left and right sides to a pair of headphones by touch not just sight? The benefit to everyday usability would be felt, quite literally, by everyone who uses them. I assume this could be very useful for persons with a visual handicap as well.
My solution would be to put a small dot or dimple on the right side earpiece, making it easily recognizable by feeling it with your fingers. This would be far more efficient than trying to look for a tiny R or L printed on it, or holding the two up and comparing the shape, or just sticking one in and seeing if it feels right.
Now many modern headphones like the Apple Earpod have a remote and microphone on one side for smartphone use. Why not just let this serve as the indicator between left and right? First, not all headphones have a remote, but all should have a touch based indicator of left and right. Second, by placing the indicator on the earpiece itself the insertion is more efficient and convenient.
So, can we all set the headphone manufacturers of the world down and convince them to collectively implement a universal indicator?
Trapped Speed 