There is a lot of talk about the iPhone 2 which is maybe coming soon. From 3g to applications there seems a lot of debate as to what will happen. The SDK also is getting there for applications soon. With all this is mind and after having lived with my iPhone for a while, I thought I would write about what I would like to see on the iPhone.

The Phone

I’ve had a few ‘odd’ bugs with the iPhone ranging from locking up when deleting emails through to about twice it not seeing iTunes, however nothing really major has gone wrong and that has been great. One thing I simply don’t get why isn’t there is the age old chestnut of copy and paste (I’m including in the phone here as to me it’s such a basic function I don’t get why not there). It frustrates me and is something I really wish they sort out sooner rather than later. Literally every patch now I’ve been hoping then let down by the lack of it’s inclusion.

Next up is the camera which I’d like to see improved a bit. To me, the iPhone should be an all in one mobile device. I want to not have to take the laptop, not take the camera and not take my phone - it’s so close to being that for me that with a simple upgrade to the camera quality and maybe the ability for flash and video then it would be pretty damn perfect hardware wise. I would love the edition of video capture, I’m not looking for taking a long film here, just a simple snapshot would do.

Perhaps one of the biggest issues I have found is if you indeed do ‘use’ the iPhone to any extent then the battery is quite poor with regards to lasting times. I understand there is a lot going on and have done the brightness reduction on screen to try and gain more battery life, but it seems unreliable on exactly how much it does and more than once has just died on me from seemingly a full battery to nothing in a very short time. One last thing in relation to the phone is to be able to have sound profiles. Now, I maybe missing some point here but I came from Blackberry land and not being able to assign sound profiles that I can customise myself just seems wrong. Ideally I would like it to go a stage further and be able to assign profiles based on time of the day - but just being able to have sound profiles would do. I do dream of being able to say from x to y hours don’t sound mail or phone and from x to y do.

Software

I have a few things I really would like to see done by Apple of a third party.

• To do lists off-line: Whilst the ideal for me would be syncing with Things, I understand this may not happen but any application that can get off-line syncing work outside of iCal would get my vote - even if they added priorities to iCal it would be a start rather than lumping them all and seeing to dos as calendar items.
• Notes categories: I love the notes function but it really needs some refining with a basic category ability maybe. I also long to be able to sync these notes or at least get them onto my mac without emailing them.
• PDF reader: This is almost the ‘killer’ app for me. Being able to read PDF’s and Ebooks on my iPhone really would transform how I do things. Enabling me to swipe highlight text and note it would also be great when reading PDF’s but I feel that may be a bit of a dream.
• Off-line gmail reader: I yearn for the ability to read my RSS off-line and sync just like I can on my macbook pro.
• Mail mark all as read / delete: This is a simple feature that Apple Mail has and I think the iPhone really needs. I have accounts that are not IMAP and having this would make my life a lot easier.

So how has the iPhone been for me?

My iPhone really has become the thing I carry all the time. I love it quite simply and give or take a few things that I really think would be good for it to have, the experience has been a really good one so far. It has made me realise in-fact I do not want pointless ring tones or the ability to play space invaders on my phone - I actually want a more functional device that fits to what I want to do. Whilst the things I’ve seen with people hacking there iPhone have given a moment of ooo to me, I really can’t see why I should need to do this. I will note that with the slowness of the SDK it’s been getting more and more tempting. I intend though on getting the next iPhone if not as soon as out fairly shortly after. My husband at the same time got a Nokia phone which he’s had nothing but problems with and he’s going to be the recipient of my current iPhone when I upgrade as he is fed up of the problems syncing phones on macs and has seen the ease of use the iPhone has given me. All in all I’m very glad I moved from Blackberry over to the iPhone.