| News: iPhone - Features I would like to see added |
By now most people have heard all about the iPhone, and have already made their minds up about whether it's amazing or just a waste of money. Of course, there is also a third category of people who have reserved judgement in favour of waiting to see what updates Apple will release over the next few months.
I've researched the iPhone and I believe i've come up with a good list of features that (I personally) would like to see added. Not everyone will agree with me, and that's understandable because we all have different requirements and usage patterns when it comes to mobile devices.
Here is the list of things I would like to see added to the iPhone, in no particular order:
Flash support
This is surprising. At launch, the iPhone version of the Safari browser is missing some plug-ins needed for playing common types of Web videos. The most important of these is the plug-in for Adobe's Flash technology. You don't realize how many sites utilize flash until you try to browse without it (particular movie trailer sites, video sharing sites, etc).
Likelyhood of this functionality being added in an update?
High - According to Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal: “Apple says it plans to add that plug-in through an early software update, which I am guessing will occur within the next couple of months." - more info here.
802.11x authentication support
The wi-fi support on the iPhone is awesome. I have tested other devices in the past such as the HP iPaq RX series and the wi-fi was shockingly bad (constant drops, failures to re-connect, etc). The iPhone wi-fi is very stable and is one of the most useful features from my point of view. However, the wi-fi support does have a drawback. At the moment the iPhone supports WEP, WPA, and WPA2 - but it does not provide 802.11x authentication support. For any wi-fi network that requires certificates, this is a killer.
Likelyhood of this functionality being added in an update?
Unlikely - There is not a huge demand for this, but for the people/companies that are affected by it...it sucks. It would not take much to implement this.
IMAP Purge
In short, the iPhone supports IMAP and the deleting of emails. However, all it does it mark the emails for deletion - it does not perform a 'Purge' to fully remove them from the IMAP server. Surprisingly, there is no option to allow you to perform a 'Purge' of deleted mail at your convienience. Instead, the best you can do is tell the iPhone to purge deleted mail after 1 day...which is pretty poor.
Likelyhood of this functionality being added in an update?
High - I think there has been enough bad press about this missing functionality to warrant Apple to at least look into it. I can't see why it would be hard to implement, so I expect that this is likely to be fixed in a future update.
Full Exchange Server Support
Apple managed to put some Exchange support into the iPhone before release, largely due to the amount of people who went "wtf" when they heard that iPhone wouldn't support their exchange email servers. At present, the iPhone only supports exchange over IMAP - so if your exchange server is not configured to provide IMAP access then you wont be able to get your email. The iPhone also lacks the ability to sync other exchange data such as contacts and calendar info.
Likelyhood of this functionality being added in an update?
Possible - There are rumours flying around that Apple may licensing ActiveSync from Microsoft...so maybe we will see full exchange support in the future. There is certainly pressure on Apple to fully support exchange since a lot of businesses and educational institutes use it.
Instant Messaging
Another surprising choice by Apple...the iPhone does not come with any instant messaging application. I don't think I need to explain why this is a downer for users.
Likelyhood of this functionality being added in an update?
High - Apple will add IM to the iPhone soon I am certain. However, even if they don't - Trillian Astra will be released soon and it will support the iPhone (droooool...)
Locking the iPhone to AT&T
This is frustrating for anyone who is not (and doesn't want to be) a customer of AT&T. Right now you need to use AT&T as your phones network provider in order to use the iPhone.
Likelyhood of this functionality being added in an update?
High - I believe the hackers will unlock the iphone fairly soon, as they have already made substantial progress in this field. I am not sure if the iPhone will be legitamately available on other phone networks in the future, but I am sure there will be ways to use your Sprint or T-Mobile simm card in the iPhone soon.
No ability to turn EDGE off from the iPhone
Whenever wi-fi is not available, the iPhone will automatically fall back to using EDGE for data access. This is usually not a problem, but there are some circumstances/scenarios where you don't want to use EDGE. For example, if you are one of the people using hacks to use a pre-pay SIMM card in the iPhone to get a true "pre-pay" plan - then EDGE will cost you a lot of $$$ every time it's invoked without you realizing.
Likelyhood of this functionality being added in an update?
Non-existant - Thankfully, if you don't want EDGE you can call AT&T and ask them to remove it from your plan. However, there should really be a setting on the iPhone to configure this and disable EDGE if you want to.
Games
Kind of obvious...but where are the games? We have to rely on the Internet to provide us with web-app games now, and so far the range of games is not that great (there are a good selection, but a lot of them do not provide very friendly interfaces). This should improve in time...but I am not sure why Apple didn't provide at least one killer game out-of-the-box.
Likelyhood of this functionality being added in an update?
None - Apple will leave it for people on the net to develop web-app games.
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Posted on: 10-08-2007
Article has been viewed 31094 times
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| Comments |
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Comment by mmolai - 10-08-2007
I wish you could put shortcuts in the blank spaces under clocks through settings.
Like speed dial for a contact or a bookmark for safari
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