photo credit: Josh Bancroft

Among the chief complaints of the early iPhone OS releases were major missing features available in other phones, such as copy/paste, MMS, Stereo Bluetooth (and other Bluetooth profiles), to name a few. Those features have been added in subsequent iPhone OS releases, to the joy of consumers who sorely missed them, and to the disdain of iPhone haters (as it gave them less to complain about).

Since Judie compiled a comprehensive post on our thoughts on upcoming iPhone hardware, we thought it would be interesting to generate a similar wishlist of iPhone OS software features.

And we’re not necessarily talking about 3.x release features, but even more major 4.x type updates …

Carly was the first to chime in:

Lockinfo. Lockinfo. Lockinfo. Lockinfo.

Amy quickly added:

What she said…

Plus…an app to conserve battery life…I know that they have one for Android called SweetDreams that works great…

Mark chimed in with a huge list:

iPhone improvements

Add Palm Pre card/multitasking, but allow some kind of special gesture (or preferable a side button) to toggle between single app and multitask. This way when you need every cpu cycle you can get like playing a 3d game, you don’t get stuttering, but for every day stuff, you can do things like listen to Pandora, use trapster, and process email all at the same time. When you go to single app mode, all background apps either pause or do the equivalent of closing.

Also, add palm pre unlock gesture

Add Palm Pre favorites folders in email so you don’t have to scroll through a zillion folders on your exchange folder which is near impossible on the iphone.

Allow a user definable amount of ‘preview’ lines when scrolling through email in lists.

Possible come up with a ‘quick view’ mode in email so you can process and scan with one hand as easy as you do on a Treo or Blackberry.

Also, add the ability for folders other than the inbox to at least update automatically, even if push isn’t doable.

Add Palm Pre Notification design. (It really is excellent)

Once you add multitasking, add some kind of ‘task manager’ functionality for power users in case you are running into performance problems.

Add truly integrated flash (like Pre has coming)

On the hardware side…
Create a model with a real keyboard (and allow snow to fall in hell)
Make it even thinner with even better battery life
Make it easy to remove the back plate and change the battery.
Add Palm Pre like Touchstone charging as an option.

Show attachments fixed in the header like the pre, not all the way at the bottom of an email.

Open up Bluetooth so a portable keyboard becomes a reasonable reality, or at least allow it through the docking connector. (I’ve never understood that limitation)

Dan said:

What they said.

Plus, the ability to auto-gather different kinds of apps. eg- put all games in one place automatically categories/folder

Doug added:

Different nav options among apps.  I’d like tabbing, myself.  I have something like a dozen screens worth of apps, and flicking becomes tiresome.

I’d like to have the ability to, with one tap, disable bluetooth, wifi, decrease the screen brightness, and do whatever else that would increase the battery life.  One tap.  I’m tired of having to go to multiple screens to turn stuff on and off.  Maybe a way to put certain “Settings” right on top, so you can get to them directly.

And then chimed in again:

A bluetooth keyboard (A flexible one you can roll up, maybe?  Or at least *fold*.), and a stand.  Of course, you can always get a Vaja case that *incorporates” a kickstand.  Mine is on order . . .

I still think I would want a tablet, though; the screen on the iPhone is fine at 6-12 inches.  Sitting on my desk at a visual distance of a couple of feet?  Not so much.  (And my neck is bad enough *now*; I don’t need further encouragement to hunch over and make it worse.)

(I blame Judie for my Vaja obsession.)

Mitchell them replied to Doug with an existing solution to one of his wishes:

There is an app for that when you jailbreak called SBSettings, it slides down from the clock with the swipe of a finger and offers all the features you mentioned.

Mitchell also wanted the ability to download media files larger than 10 MB from iTunes on the iPhone directly (which can be accomplished via Jailbreaking).

What features would you like to see in an upcoming iPhone OS release?