Google I/O has come and gone, so now it’s time for Apple to have their annual developer conference. I feel like most of the areas for innovation isn’t at the OS level anymore, it’s with services and apps as part of the OS. Unfortunately for Apple that isn’t really their strong suit. With that in mind, here are the things I think Apple might do this year to catch up in areas that they are lagging (and a few things that just bug me about my favorite OSes).
iOS 10
- Hide stock apps. This may also introduce an opportunity to make default apps as they’d need to account for scenarios that tried to open Mail but it was hidden.
- Siri API to allow users to perform custom actions via voice
- Smart grouping of events in photos app
- Roll out transit for more cities (Ahem, Atlanta)
- Better 3rd party keyboard support. Currently it can randomly stop working or revert to the default.
- Add a swipe-style keyboard
- 3D Touch to clear all notifications from the pull down notification center
- Allow me to close all Safari tabs easily (3d touch?)
- Granular cell data use, much like battery section. Let me see daily / weekly data use per app & overall
- Better “now playing” integration on home screen & in mission control. Allow 3rd parties to add actions like iTunes currently has. I’d love to be able to add a song to my library with one tap, or star a podcast in overcast.
- A ‘Car mode’ similar to what Google announced at I/O – optionally allowing me to launch a CarPlay type UI when driving to minimize distractions and ease in tasks like navigation, calls and texts.
- Proactive, travel history, workout & health data should be able to be backed up to iCloud or your computer separately so you don’t lose that information when moving to a new iPhone.
Mac OS X 12
- Add Siri to OS X.
- Siri API to allow users to perform custom actions via voice
- Photos app should sync faces & do a better job of guessing who a person is.
- Photos app should auto create albums like Google Photos does
- Brand new iTunes / Apple Music split. Let me do all the things iTunes currently does in iTunes and split Apple music into a new place for my cloud needs.
- More progress on dark mode
- iCloud sync status in the menu bar
watchOS 3
- Simplify the interface – swipe down for notifications and swipe up to view recently opened apps.
- Get rid of honeycomb app launcher and make something more usable.
- Allow users to set what the contacts button does (launch app, change watch face, etc). I’d love to have the button open up runkeeper or OmniFocus.
- 3rd party watch faces
- Location-based watch faces. I’d love to have a work and home face that automatically changes when I enter a geofenced area.
- Speed. No idea if it’s even possible but the fact that the apps are so slow is a killer
- Make Siri faster. I currently don’t even bother because it’s so slow. And seemingly has gotten worse over time (although I think it’s actually that my 6s Plus is that much better)
- Wrist flick sensitivity settings. Id be willing to sacrifice some battery life to have my watch be a little more sensitive to my wrist movements.
- Auto detect when I’m running
- Make it easier for devs (Spotify, Overcast) to put audio on the device. I’d love to be able to listen to either of those apps without my phone.
Misc software
- Apple News: make tab bar persistent at bottom to more easily get home
- Apple Music: all of this.
- Contacts app is super sluggish as of the most recent OS. Hope they clear that up.