

IOS 6: Higher Hanging Fruit - cmer
http://www.imore.com/2012/05/31/higher-hanging-fruit-ios-6/

======
credo
My wish is that Apple adds paid upgrades for apps in the app store.

I'm now close to releasing a major upgrade for an iPhone app, but these
upgrades aren't going to be sustainable for me without paid upgrades (I don't
want the new features to be IAP features)

In the long run, this will also benefit customers because paid-upgrades will
help developers add more features to the app. Users who want the new features
can pay for the upgrade. Users who don't want to pay more can stick with the
older version of the app (and hopefully the app store will make it possible
for users to re-install older versions of the app).

~~~
duiker101
Let's suppose you app uses an API, or whatever other thing that you do not
have control over it. You make your app and release it. Then you make a paid
upgrade. After some time, that thing your app rely on gets deprecated or
changes. If you push an update to only people with the a paid upgrade you
screw those who have not paid, leaving them with an non working app that they
might have paid for. which sucks. But if you push a free update for everyone
you will screw those who paid for the upgrade. which sucks.

So, what would you do?

~~~
acdha
Alternate strawman: you do not use paid upgrades and at some point stop making
enough money to continue developing and supporting the app and the API. All of
your users are screwed , too.

It's easy to envision hypothetical situations and they're all already
possible, leaving customers stuck having to gauge how serious a company is and
how sustainable their business model will be. Paid upgrades don't change this
situation but do offer a currently blocked way for developers to make apps
with a long-term plan

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cageface
I think the major mobile operating systems are rapidly approaching maturity. I
don't expect any radical changes in Android, iOS or WP at this point. iOS in
particular hardly looks different than what Steve demoed in 2007.

This is also why I think Android's upgrade problem may not turn out to be so
important in practice. Even if the carriers utterly fail to roll out OS
upgrades, the 2-3 year device churn cycle will eventually get new versions in
play and ICS has fixed most of the glaring problems with the OS and is "good
enough". Once Google makes major components like the browser upgradable as
apps it won't be that important to rev the base OS.

~~~
hollerith
Isnt Windows Phone 8 a completely different codebase (namely WinRT) from WP
7.5?

~~~
compteHN
It is. It will be using the NT kernel instead of Win CE 6/7. It will be
sharing the same networking stacks, security subsystems as Windows 8.

------
alper
I am amazed at how every single one idea in there is either stupid from the
onset or the concept given is executed in an absolutely braindead way.

Just one: direct file access. The best thing Apple did for the learning curve
of computing is destroy the concept of files for the casual user. The
restrictions are put on the designer who has to figure out a creative way to
enable task fulfillment within those restrictions. That is not a file picker
(with Folders no less).

The most important enhancement is not even on the list: an iPad with several
hundred apps is totally unwieldable. That should be fixed.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "The most important enhancement is not even on the list: an iPad with
several hundred apps is totally unwieldable. That should be fixed."

This isn't a problem very many people face. The average iPhone user only has
65 apps installed (Source:Flurry) (I don't know about the iPad but I guess it
would be around the same). Apple typically doesn't cater to the needs of a
minority.

With folders you should be able to get a very large number of apps on your
iPad's first home screen. I think it's around 400 (20 folders x 20 apps per
folder).

~~~
alper
That would force me to spend time to manually drag everything into folders
with the same cataloguing problem you face in every other domain after which I
would not really be able to locate anything else.

True, the fact that I have this many apps is a professional deformation, but
still the app life cycle from installing/updating, to managing/organizing, to
finding and launching one is severely broken from its mental model on.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I agree that managing a large number of apps can be tricky. What kind of
solution would you like to see? Generally I just use spotlight. One swipe,
type a few letters, and the app is found.

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drewblaisdell
There is no way that Apple is going to add any sort of direct file access into
iOS 6. This would completely undermine the work that they have done to get rid
of the metaphor.

That said, there is certainly a problem with how files interact with iOS,
mainly when it comes to email. Bridging the gap between the non-mobile file
world and the pseudo-fileless iOS is going to be tricky.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Could you explain what is the matter with the filesystem metaphor?

~~~
ZenPsycho
It is too complicated and abstract for ordinary people to understand, and it
is spiced with a sense of inherent danger since critical system files cannot
be modified without doing significant damage to the system- system files that
are right there along your ordinary user files which are impossible to find
unless you can remember what you named it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface>

~~~
MatthewPhillips
> It is too complicated and abstract for ordinary people to understand

Evidence?

> spiced with a sense of inherent danger since critical system files cannot be
> modified without doing significant damage to the system- system files that
> are right there along your ordinary user files

Not on any operating system released in nearly 10 years.

> impossible to find unless you can remember what you named it.

UX is a problem, but eliminating files just creates other, in my opinion much
worse problems, namely that all "files" or "documents" are tied to one
specific application.

~~~
ZenPsycho
The evidence for the file system problem can be found in pretty much any book
about user interfaces, but I have already linked to one in the post you are
replying to. But aside from any arbitrary book on the subject, the evidence is
not hard to find. All you really have to do is watch a computer novice try to
use a computer for any length of time.

I don't know what operating systems you are using, but My mac with the latest
operating system still has a multiple "library" folders and a "system" folder.
I presume windows 7 still has a windows folder, a program files folder, and
documents and settings folders. Any unix type system has /usr /bin /var /etc .
These things are so apparently ingrained it appears you are incapable of
perceiving them.

as for your third point, this is what is called the fallacy of the false
dichotomy or false dilemma. The solution for this is that there's more than
just the 2 options you are imagining.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
> I don't know what operating systems you are using, but My mac with the
> latest operating system still has a multiple "library" folders and a
> "system" folder. I presume windows 7 still has a windows folder, a program
> files folder, and documents and settings folders. Any unix type system has
> /usr /bin /var /etc . These things are so apparently ingrained it appears
> you are incapable of perceiving them.

Those operating systems do separate user and system files with different
permissions. Some even default to putting user files on a separate partition.

> as for your third point, this is what is called the fallacy of the false
> dichotomy or false dilemma. The solution for this is that there's more than
> just the 2 options you are imagining.

Please enlighten me.

------
__float
This seems to be quite a comprehensive collection of features yet to be found
in iOS while still remaining well thought out. Adding some of these features
surely would be silly, but as iOS reaches a higher level of maturity, it'll
certainly be interesting to see what Apple comes up with.

Windows 8 Contracts-like inter-app communication would seem to be the greatest
feature users would love without even realizing its existence. It's a shame
Apple (with OS X as well) loves to keep sandboxed apps _so_ isolated.
Launching Safari to open a URL for a specific app the user may not own is
quite unfortunate.

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elsurudo
Almost all of these will never happen, since they are against Apple's
philosophy. They've tried to simplify things (which makes sense for a small
device), and get rid of old metaphors (files). All most of these things do is
clutter things up for the average user.

~~~
mrich
I agree, I think this will also be the reason why iOS popularity will fade
over time. Either they adapt and make their OS more powerful, or people will
move to alternatives that let them do more quicker. Simplification was a good
selling point but features will become important again as smartphones become
the central window to computing .

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twoodfin
An Exposé-style task switcher would be excellent, particularly on the iPad.

~~~
k-mcgrady
That would be nice. They could combine it with the iPad advanced gestures.
Pinching your hand currently closes and app and does nothing on the home
screen. How about making that zoom out to an exposé view?

------
te_chris
Better inter-app communication a la intents on android would be great.

~~~
timspeaking
Yes - this is probably the one major thing that keeps me on Android. Easy
sharing between apps.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
It's poorly implemented on Android. I have 5 browsers installed and when in
any particular app I might click a link and it will ask me which browser I
want to use to open it!

------
tomflack
While we're playing the speculation game...

The ability to arrange home screens in shapes other than grids

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview has shown me that the merits of arranging app
icons in shapes are numerous. It's easier to find things.

Likelihood: Low

Sync galleries between devices via iCloud

I love the Photo Stream. Photos I take on my phone show up on my iPad and I
can select the good ones to make galleries from... fantastic! Only downside is
those galleries don't sync back to my phone, so when I want to show a friend
on my phone the sweet gallery of photos from Friday night's party I can't.

Likelihood: Medium

Sync notifications between devices via iCloud

If I look at twitter on my phone, when I look at my tablet four hours later
the same @mention notifications shouldn't be waiting for me. Ditto to every
other app I use on both devices.

Likelihood: Medium-low

Gratis turn-by-turn navigation

Android does it, Nokia Windows Phones do it. iPhone should do it. Perhaps I'm
just a cheapskate or perhaps navigation has been devalued so much by Google
Maps' ubiquity but I don't want to pay for an app in the app store to do this.
Apple bought a mapping company a while back - let's see something happen with
it!

Likelihood: ????

~~~
chrisbroadfoot
Apple actually bought three mapping companies :)

------
MatthewPhillips
It's pretty amazing that the things WebOS got right from the beginning -
cards, synergy, and notifications - are still _way_ better than what other
phones are providing.

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jsz0
For iOS6 multi-tasking on the 5th generation iPhone, if the rumors of a ~170
pixel taller display are true, I would like to see a persistent dock mode when
you activate the multi-tasking switcher. So basically you double-home-tap and
the app resizes down ~170 pixels and the dock appears. The dock stays on the
bottom of the screen as you switch between applications and use them. When
you're done with your little flurry of heavy multi-tasking you double-home-tap
to hide the dock again. This should also work nicely on an iPad sized display.
For the ways I multi-task on iOS this would be almost a perfect system. Most
of the time I'm jumping into another app for a very brief stay -- just long
enough to copy something, reference something, or act on an event, then I'm
returning to whatever I was doing. On the iPhone this presently requires a
ridiculous number of home button taps. On the iPad using the multi-touch
gestures require a lot of swiping. The Mission Control style switching this
article suggests would be OK but I feel like it would still require a lot of
extra taps and swipes.

~~~
twodayslate
I really don't think Apple is going to change the screen size of the iPhone.
They have their designs down to a science.

<http://dcurt.is/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/>

~~~
jsz0
I'm not a fan of _huge_ displays but 4" is actually pretty tame by today's
standards. Apple may have come up with the perfect screen size for a
SmartPhone circa 2007 but today the vast majority of SmartPhones sold in the
world have larger displays so clearly 3.5" cannot be the only perfect size. I
do think they have stood by 3.5" in part to see if this trend was just a
temporary divergence. Now that is has endured for a couple years it's hard to
ignore.

The other factor here is I think as Apple has scaled iOS to include more
features they have begun to hit the wall of physical UI space. Let's use
Safari as an example. If Apple wanted to add 2 new major features to Safari
that had to be quickly accessible where would they even put them? The UI is
just about full. They would have to increasingly rely on pop-out controls and
other less-than-obvious UI tricks which adds extra taps. The situation is even
worse when the keyboard is active taking up half the screen. With the status
bar and maybe a visible app toolbar you have about a quarter of the screen
available. Reading text messages on an iPhone has actually become painful. You
can rarely see the entire message without scrolling or hiding the keyboard. A
taller screen fixes that. They may just really need an extra ~170 pixels of
height to keep scaling these apps with new features that require UI space.

~~~
Terretta
> _4" tame by today's standards... perfect for 2007 but today..._

How the average human thumb grew 0.5" between 2007 and 2012, making today's 4"
screens better than 3.5" screens of 2007, is one of nature's mysteries.

------
gurkendoktor
I see why someone with 250+ unread mails would also care about information
density. I cringed all the way through the article, it screams information
addiction throughout.

Not everything that a device _can_ possibly display (or scream in the form of
a notification) should be crammed into the OS just because it's possible and
thus still "missing". I'm considering a Jailbreak to turn off Notification
Center and Spotlight and other stuff I don't use, but can't be disabled.

 _Simplifying_ iOS is a high-hanging fruit. Or outdoing Google at maps. Or
outdoing Dropbox at cloud services. Or outdoing amazon at books. Or taking
some of the painful burden off iTunes.app.

------
dafunnie
I feel like some of these suggestions would defeat Apple's minimality.
Amalgamating Windows and Android's complex features with Apple would
completely damage the benefits of iOS. Stripping things like personalization,
information display and unnecessary configuration options is what makes Apple
what it is. If you want/require Windows and Android's tech customizability,
you wouldn't own an Apple device. If Apple implemented those features, it
would be like Facebook reverting to MySpace's overabundance of ugly profiles
and teenboppy usernames.

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headShrinker
Apple is or at least under Jobs, was very clear about not adding function that
would consequently disrupt form or usability. Many of the features listed as
suggestions for the iOS are present in other OSs. It's these 'features' that
motivated me to move back to the iPhone.

Here is an example: The current rumor is Apple will introduce a larger (~170
px taller) screen. With larger screens (or taller) when you are using one hand
(which most seem to want to do), as you reach your thumb to the far side of
the screen your thumb muscle makes contact with the touch surface, causing
inadvertent input. One-handed operation with newer devices such as the GS2 are
very difficult. Also the sheer size of some of these newer "handhelds" is a
bit too big for my hand (which is average to large size) requiring me to use
two hands. It's little details like this that the OP and iPhone competitors
seem to miss. Does the screen need to be bigger, and at what cost? If the cost
is usability or adding clutter to the UI, then it will likely not make it in
to the iPhone 5.

Mobile devices are good for somethings but are not meant to replace full
computers.

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slantyyz
My biggest beef is a low hanging fruit issue.

I can't get any reliable voice dialing recognition (I'm using Voice Control
but I haven't had any better luck with Siri on my wife's phone) - it would be
nice if you could limit voice dialing to your favorite contacts as opposed to
your entire address book.

~~~
X-Istence
You can add nicknames for your contacts which will be used by Siri.

I've never had Siri dial the wrong number when I have asked the device to call
someone...

------
user23409
A computer. What you want is a more general computer. There's nothing wrong
with that, just saying.

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cpeterso
I would love to see a Swype-like keyboard. I'm surprised that Apple didn't
acquire Swype. The user experience is fluid and iOS-like. Apple could use
Swype's patents to keep the keyboard as a unique selling point for iOS.

~~~
fpgeek
I believe Apple didn't acquire anything from Swype because Nuance got there
first.

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twodayslate
What I want, and what would convince me to not jailbreak, is quick reply. The
iPhone is powerful enough to handle the extra processing and it makes life a
whole lot easier.

~~~
glhaynes
What is that?

~~~
hboon
Reply to texts, etc without switching away from the current app.

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dr_
but the features pointed out in this article have not attained widespread use,
and who knows - maybe there's a reason for that. Windows phone has a
negligibly small market share. WebOS died. Blackberry 10 is not even out yet.
And apparently the newest Android OS is also on very few
phones.[http://mobile.theverge.com/2012/6/2/3058522/android-4-0-now-...](http://mobile.theverge.com/2012/6/2/3058522/android-4-0-now-
on-7-1-percent-of-devices-still-woefully-behind)

The features that iOS has allowed are in widespread use once they are
implemented. This is just an observation but perhaps there's a reason Apple
prefers a controlled roll out of new features.

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tferris
Major flaw on all platforms: switching apps is cumbersome and slow

We need ALT TAB on phones

~~~
eco
Works fairly well on Android in Ice Cream Sandwich I feel. You click the
dedicated button and just tap your app's thumbnail from the list. Two taps
with maybe some sliding if you have a lot of apps open and want to go to one
you weren't using recently seems nearly as simple as you could make it.

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mrich
It is good to see an unbiased article admitting that iOS can learn from other
platforms.

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peterkelly
+1000 for direct file access. Apart from this, I personally find iOS to be an
almost perfect platform. But this single omission IMHO cripples it immensely -
especially for content creation tasks.

~~~
rimantas
You will _never_ get that from Apple. What's more, you will lose that in OSes
from others. Why? Because file system is not a solution, it's a problem.
"Normal people" don't think in terms of file system, they think about their
documents, spreadsheets, photos and movies. Cooper and others wrote about that
years ago.

------
dorian-graph
Can anyone think of cases where some blog post has been listened to by
Google/Microsoft/Apple about what they, apparently, should do?

