Chewy Apps

I got my iPhone 4S late last year. It has iOS 5 installed, and will be running the already-announced iOS 6 this fall. But it might be doing so in the hands of my wife as I upgrade to the latest iPhone, the iPhone 5.

I’ve been reading about all sorts of other phones like the Samsung Galaxy SIII and the Nokia 900 and the will-it-ever-get-here new BlackBerry running their new version 10. Lots of the stuff out there doesn’t really grab my attention. Higher DPI cameras don’t interest me. Faster hardware is nice, but my iPhone 4S is plenty fast already. Movies and sports Siri integration sounds interesting. Well, at least the movies part does.

But what would I really like to see? What hardware upgrades would I like to see in the iPhone 5, and which features do I wish were in iOS that weren’t announced? I seem to be a pretty unimaginative sort, because I’m pretty happy. But I’ll try to come up with a few things.

1. Siri Improvements
   While I’m pretty happy with the speed of my iPhone 4S, I am not happy with Siri’s speed. Siri needs to be more responsive when first invoked, and it needs to get the results of my queries faster. I know that it needs to connect to servers for lots of its intelligence, so maybe some of that can be brought down to the phone’s level. I don’t know. I do know that it’s too slow. I also wish the speech recognition would be more accurate. I try to enunciate very clearly when I talk to Siri, but it still gets many words wrong. That needs to change.
2. Widgets
   If you’re one of the seven people who read this space, you’ll know I’ve asked for this before. I want widgets. I don’t want Android style widgets. Those are ugly and unwieldy. I want iOS style widgets, which I assume would be integrated well into the home screen, and perform with rules that don’t drain my battery in an hour.
3. Larger Screen
   I like how compact my iPhone 4S is. I can’t imagine using one of those crazy “phablet” things. So if the rumours turn out to be true, and the iPhone 5 is the same width as my iPhone 4S, but thinner and a bit taller, and with a bigger screen, I’ll be happy. So I guess I’m asking for something that’s widely rumoured to be true, but that doesn’t make me want it any less.
4. Better Low-Light Pictures
   If I’m taking a picture with great lighting, my picture will look wonderful. But pictures taken in low light conditions look grainy and terrible. Indoor pictures just don’t come out looking nearly as nice as outdoor pictures. I hope something can be done about this.
5. Better File Handling
   I want to be able to store files on my phone and open them in a number of different apps. I want to pass files, links, bookmarks, etc, between my iPhone and my Mac a lot easier. iCloud, and some of its promised features in iOS 6, will help a little. But I don’t think it’s going far enough.

I’m sure there are other features that if someone mentions them I’ll say “oh yeah!”, but that’s all I can think of right now. What’s on your list?