In our regular Feature Request series, 9to5Mac authors offer their opinion on how to improve popular hardware or software products. Since we started the feature back in November of last year, the majority of installments in the series have focused on Apple’s own software and hardware, including a number of ways the company can improve its current iOS and Mac OS X software as well as possibilities for upcoming iOS 10 and Mac OS X 10.12 releases.
And some of the other Feature Requests we’ve published included features for the new Apple TV, the upcoming next-generation Apple Watch 2, Apple Music, iCloud, and more. Below we’ve compiled a hub for the series giving you an easy way to stay up to date and hopefully some hints at what to expect at WWDC this year and other upcoming Apple product launches…
iOS 10 |
For iOS, especially considering possibilities for new features in the upcoming iOS 10 release expected later this year, we explored how Apple could improve its built-in apps with iOS 10, including giving Siri more access to third-party apps, possible enhancements for Do Not Disturb and VIP features, and optimizations and other features for Apple’s stock apps and security features…
- How Apple could improve its built-in apps with iOS 10
- How Apple could enhance Do Not Disturb and VIP to better control notifications
- Require Touch ID/passcode to power-off an iOS device so thieves can be tracked
- Give Siri access to third-party apps, and (in time) much more
- Logic Pro for iPad (Pro)
- How Apple can better optimize iOS for iPad Pro
- The top 10 Android features Apple’s iOS 10 should steal
- Apple’s Calendar should borrow the personal goals feature Google just released
Mac OS X |
For Mac, Greg explored the need for quick photo sharing access in Messages for Mac like what already exists on iOS, and Benjamin detailed possibilities for Siri on the Mac, a feature Mark reported in January is currently in the works for Mac OS X 10.12 this fall.
Tom Koszyk’s Apple Music Redesign
Apple Music |
Apple Music has a lot of potential to be one of the best music streaming services around, but the consensus seems to be Apple needs to do some major UI overhauling to simplify the service while adding some missing features that could help it do so. Collaborative streaming radio stations & playlists, improvements to Apple Music inside of iTunes on the Mac, and ways Apple could better exploit exclusive content on the service’s Connect artist profile pages.
- Apple Music needs collaborative streaming radio stations & playlists
- How I hope the upcoming iTunes refresh improves Apple Music and more
- 7 ways Apple Music Connect could be improved to prevent it from being the next Ping
- Latest Apple Music ‘For You’ playlists auto-downloaded, and an official lyrics feature
iCloud |
And lastly, iCloud, Apple TV, and Apple Watch 2. This is just the tip of the iceberg for iCloud– and we have many more feature requests planned– but what we’d really like from iCloud is overall more stability and less downtime. For the series, we took a look at the need for a purge downloads button à la Google Photos, as well as navigating some of the limitations of Family Sharing.
- iCloud Photo Library needs a purge downloads button à la Google Photos
- Family Sharing w/ individual payments, shared iCloud storage upgrades, more
Apple TV |
tvOS is still relatively new following the release of the fourth-generation Apple TV, but we highlighted how adding a few new features to improve universal search on the platform could really improve things quickly.
- Apple TV 4 needs a way to watch TV shows from multiple sources in one universal app
- Apple TV dictation in search fields for all apps
Apple Watch 2 |
Finally, Zac hopes for an Apple Watch 2 Upgrade Program, even though he’ll inevitably upgrade to a newer model this fall:
Let us know in the comments below if you have ideas for future Feature Requests.
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How about Mail that actually works without crashing all the time and without disappearing messages when using exchange accounts?
Maybe something else is wrong. Have you talked to Apple about it? I don’t know if this is a wide spread problem, maybe there’s something going on with your specific computer/OS install, rather than being an issue that Apple can even address in development?
If you’ve already talked to Apple Support or local Apple Genius, then I would put the compliant in to http://www.apple.com/feedback and then click on the proper product. Those emails get routed to the proper people and sometimes they actually might get back to you if they need more information, but that’s one route for you, but I would certainly talk to someone at Apple Support and look up the problem on they Support User community.
I wait since the beginning for Siri for Mac. Wonder why they wait so long.
Because the probably wanted to get OS X cleaned up before they add a resource intensive app, and I don’t think was as high of a priority since most people aren’t conditioned to use voice control on a desktop. I don’t know if you’ve used Cortana on Windows 10, but the people I’ve talked to said it’s slow as shit and it sucks. So, I’m sure Apple just wants to make sure the implementation doesn’t suck before it releases it. Just a gut feeling.
I wonder what the system requirements are going to be in order to use it.
How about a Mac with LCD 5 display and Gorilla Glass protection therefore 1-milimeter which bezels?
+1 on the Apple Watch Upgrade Program. I know I’ll have trouble justifying that to my wife unless I can get a fair bit for my current one. If Apple had an upgrade program, that would be a lot easier.
id like to see airdrop support for the apple watch. for sending pictures, and contacts
OS X needs to incorporate the same video PiP design that iOS has now. Make it compatible with websites and native apps, and make it compatible with full screen apps (including two app split screen).
Yes we definitely need Logic pro on iPad pro. Now all we have is third party apps which can be very good (think Auria pro) but are not great. I would pay 200EUR for Logic Pro on iPad Pro immediately, provided it works like it does on a Mac. Which it should according to benchmarks around the web. I’m very happy you’ve included this as a feature request. Let’s hope Apple notices.
iOS 10 needs a full rethinking of 3D Touch, to actually make it useful. Firstly, I’d remove peek and pop from photos because it’s unintelligent design in that your finger covers much of the content, 95% of the time. Secondly, Quick Actions should completely be dropped and replaced with Quick Info, wherein pressing on any apps whether they’re on the home screen, or in Search results, brings up a popup of glancable, useful information, as opposed to the useless quick actions. Glancable information here would be far more useful to far more users, as it isn’t something you need to memorize, you simply know that pressing on this gives you information, and not a few set actions which are completely different for every app, and 99% of people won’t memorize more than 1 apps’ quick actions.
So for some examples of the uselessness of quick actions vs. quick info: if you press the weather app currently it brings up a list of your selected cities which you can then press to jump right to that city (yes you can laugh hysterically at the uselessness of that). Now, with quick info, it would instead bring up a small graphic box with text which tells current weather conditions and temperature for your area, as well as another city you have selected (tap the city to go to it inside the app). Another example would be you press the calendar and it shows today’s schedule (tap it and it takes you to the day’s list in the calendar app).
Another thing that would make it more useful would be pressing on any text or word and then moving your finger around highlights text until you release your finger (only the initial pressure matters), as opposed to having to hold your finger then expand the field where you want.
iOS:
– regarding thefts: let us use the Flight Mode toggle in the Control Centre only when the phone is unlocked. A locked phone should not be allowed to power off or enter flight mode without authentication.
– Touch ID: allow us to introduce a small delay for unlocking. On the iPhone 6S, 9 out of 10 times I barely manage to see whatever notifications are on the lock screen. When the phone unlocks, they get lost. I have to CONSCIOUSLY aim the home button in a way that authentication will fail or not take place, in order to not miss the notifications. I absolutely HATE this on the iPhone 6/6S.
– with 3D Touch, the control centre toggles on force-touch could take us to the respective Settings screens, especially for WiFi and Bluetooth. Or even better, for bluetooth display the list of paired devices. The latter could prove particularly USEFUL during CALLS, where now I have to a) go to the home screen b) launch bluetooth settings c) select a somehow-disconnected bluetooth device
– A Finder for iOS, from where we can access all file services (iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, local user files etc).
– Along with the previous, allow for a different file access model: when we open a file from the Finder, it should not be copied to the App’s private space like it happens now. These two steps will bring me a lot closer to leaving my laptop at the office when I go to meetings and I have to edit Pages documents stored in my Google Drive
iCloud Drive:
– should allow us to FULLY manage our files there in, like Google Drive does. GD for iOS is a _beautiful_ application that is very usable (if it allowed us to zip/unzip stuff, I’d give it 10/10, now it’s 9.9/10)
– app-specific folders should all be moved inside an Apps/ or AppFiles/ directory in there. (Advanced) Users should (ideally) be allowed to hide this folder completely. As it is now, it’s like iCloud Drive exists only to cater for iWork apps’ needs and the odd iOS app that stores data in there. It’s definitely not a Google Drive EQUIVALENT and until it becomes one, iWork apps should drop the assumption that all our files are in iCloud and should start playing better with stuff stored elsewhere
OSX:
– I loved the night-shift in iOS. I’d love to see a built-in version into OSX. I know there’s a 3rd-party app out there, but I’d rather see it done by Apple
– iTunes and syncing media to iOS devices: I won’t even bother. Luckily I’m a programmer and I managed to write myself an AppleScript for mirroring my meticulously curated and numerous playlists (ex DJ) into iTunes and hence into iOS (it’s freely available on StackOverflow, btw)
Apple Music:
– Radio is severely lacking stations in areas outside Apple’s branding/promotion portfolio and outside “American” tastes. The hugest omission for me is total absence of ambient/lounge/chill-out stations (notice the plural). Then there are other genres that are easily popular across the continents: 80s, 90s, italo disco, salsa / bachata, tango Argentino, There’s only one station in the Dance category (people who do dance laugh at this) and only one in Electronic. Need I go on?
– allow us to erase radio stations and manage them (rename / change cover, merge them with other radio stations). But erasing some stale ones would be a good start
– drop the auto-copying of discovered user-radio-stations and introduce a station rating system with rolling average ratings. What I mean: right now when you search for something, you are also presented with a list of potentially matching radio stations, apparently from other users. When you select one of them, a copy of that station is made into your “space” so that you can start listening and customising it. What I’m recommending is that this should not happen automatically. We should be given a choice to either listen to the radio station as-is (and rate it or “follow” it) by default, or make a copy to our own space so that we can start customising it further (with a link back to the original station, so that proper credits can be given). Allow station creators to edit a short description for their stations so that listeners can have a … taste … of what’s in there
– which leads us to … being able to mark our radio stations as private or public
Here’s an idea for widgets in iOS: Instead of having widgets in the notification center. Why not put the widgets as a force touch on each app icon? For example: You want to get a quick view of weather for your location and maybe a couple of others. Do a hard press and hold on the Weather app and it will give you a quick preview of the weather. The widget can have a great design and be much more intuitive that way.
Idea #2: implement a Dashboard like we’ve seen on OS X. You could access the dashboard by doing a pinch on your main screen, which would bring you to the dashboard. There you can view all of your widgets, customize the layout and what not.
Please add in mouse support for iPad Pro. It’s so simple and would make such a big difference for using it as a laptop!
How come iOS has leaped to iOS 10, but Mac OS X is still at 10.12 – When the heck are we going to say OS X 11? Even Windows is at 10.
Branding. Marketing. Recognition.
OS X = well known and used for years.
OS 11 = what?
OS XI = huh? What’s next OS XII? No.
Because the X is the 10, and we’re already at version 11 of it, thus 10.12 — the thirteenth major version as the first was 10.0 — is next. iOS has leaped how? It uses the first number to denote major version, which is different than OS X. Also, Windows skipped v9 altogether, so who cares what they’re doing — basically none of these three things has anything to do with one another.
I have to say Apple Music is largely awful because instead of the simplicity you want by simply hitting a radio station and listening to music and expecting a steady stream of a wide range of at least hundreds of songs, you choose a station and it’s not only the same few songs, but it literally doesn’t even shuffle the playlist. Also, curated playlists are nice in theory, but as I’ve learned, they simply don’t work because almost none of them won’t have several songs you have to skip because you don’t like them.
Apple Music is honestly very very bad for taking the work out of listening to music. I don’t know if they’re contractually unable to allow people to choose not to have songs replayed, but that’s crazy awful in itself for a radio/playlist centralized service.
It’s also awful for music discovery.
I think Connect is a trumendously terrible idea, as well. Here’s the only thing that would be good in regards to social music aspect: user created playlists that can be shared and given some sort of rating through hearts. They’re sorted and can be searched for based on tags users give their playlists such as ’90’s’ ‘rock’ or ‘workout alternative’ ‘House M.D. Top Songs’ etc. You could add these to your playlists and add or remove songs as you wish.
OSX – Support for external GPU’s
iCloud – Get it closer to time machine. I know this won’t be practical for everyone due to bandwidth but personally I’d like to backup to iCloud from my Mac (i.e. be able to recover deleted files) and have that integrated into Time Machine.
Mac and iOS App Stores. Get them to support trail software and support paid for upgrades. I’d love to see the Mac App Store really work but I completely understand why some providers such as Sketch have backed out. Software providers need to commit and pay staff and if we want professional level software we need to support these businesses. Of course on the Mac users don’t have to use the app store but on iOS there’s no other real option so if we want iPad Pro to be the best it can I feel Apple need to create an App Store that works better for the software providers.
OSX – support for LTE: Not likely I know but I still would like a sim card built into Macbooks. Even though we can use iPhone’s as a hotspot I still like the idea of having it built in. I’m guessing that there’s actually a little more to this than Apple just trying to sell iPhones to everyone, so stuff like background app refresh that we see in iOS. I just think a 12″ Macbook with built in LTE would be neat.
I’m irking at “Mac OS X”. :p
Great article though! :-)
I would love it if Notification Center would allow me to control only specific eMail accounts to .. well .. Notify me. Not all or nothing.
Logic Pro for iPad Pro would be a definite plus. Very happy that this is on your feature request!
How about an update for copy, paste that has not changed since before Clinton…..how about making it easy to delete anything on you mac…easy!