Federico Viticci’s iOS 9 wishlist contains my number one gamebreakinig missing feature in iOS:
Seven years into the App Store, I struggle to find a reasonable motivation for not allowing users to set different default apps on iOS. I believe Apple should accept that they can’t make the perfect email client or web browser for all kinds of users, and, just like custom keyboards, they should let users choose their favorite app for a specific set of core tasks. If personalization of a user’s iOS device has truly become a priority at Apple, then it should be extended to activities that users frequently perform on an iPhone or iPad.
If Apple were to finally make this possible, there’s going to be a whole lot of Google iPhones and Google iPads out there.
I’m afraid you lost me with these Google/Apple jokes. Is it even a joke? :/
Default map app: Google Maps
Default email: Gmail
That kind of thing, perhaps.
Chrome, Maps, Gmail, that sort of thing.
If you install Chrome, Gmail and Google Maps on your iPhone or iPad then you never need open Safari, Mail or Apple Maps.
… And google know everything you read/write/search… I prefer the Apple ecosystem. While collecting metrics with Apple happens to some extent, It’s significantly less then what Google collects and then resells to absolutely everyone.
Any company that is as diverse as Google and yet makes ~85% of it’s income from one source, ads… you know they are collecting more data on you then the NSA.
Google does not sell anyone’s data. Common misconception.
When it comes to technically minded people saying this – that is not a misconception, it’s a deception(aka lie).
I’ve been working with Google AdWords for a very long time and the amount of information that Google proves to the advertisers is abysmally minuscule.
More important than that though IMO, I wish they’d add a damn notification LED already. How a smartphone could ship without this feature is more than I can say. This is the #1 reason why I don’t use an iPhone as a daily driver (though there are several others as well.) Do people really like having to pick up their phone and turn it on to see if there’s any notifications they missed, instead of just being able to glance at it from across the room?
Also, in regard to custom keyboards, I’ve seen Swiftkey on iOS, and it looks like a piss-poor imitation of the Android version. It doesn’t even have an option for a number row for Christ’s sake.
Ugh, coming from a Nokia N9 where they properly use the amoled screen that can have pretty much any sort of notification on it you want even when it’s sitting idle and unplugged on your desk, then going to (at least the Note 3 and 4) Android where you may have an LED, but there are so many different types of notifications you can have that keeping which color is flashing straight to mean which is rather annoying, but still better than iPhone apparently which completely lacks either.
Have you tried this?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.achep.acdisplay
Also, there’s Lightflow. And the Moto X has this capability built in.
Hint: You’re supposed to buy the iWatch for that kind of feature…
Nah, don’t buy it. These phones have been shipping without this feature since 2007 …
You get tapped on your wrist when you get a notification, so no need for a LED.
So you need to spend an additional $400 for notifications? Seriously, what the fuck are you smoking?!!
It’s called vaping. Yes, that’s how you receive notifications. You can also buy an adaptor that plugs into the lightning port. The adaptor is a lighting-to-finger adaptor, and has a mechanical finger on one end. You put that finger beside a lamp’s on switch, and every time you receive a notification the finger will flick the lamp on, then off (or off then on – you can configure it in the app). I think you can get these adaptors for around $230, so if you don’t want to go the watch route, that would be a good option for you.
While I doubt Apple will loosen up so much as to allow us to set default everything, I do hope they at least let us specify a preferred mail client. I’d love to be able to go to Contacts, find a person and tap the little mail icon and have Dispatch instead of that useless Mail.app showing up.
Speaking of contacts, isn’t it about frickin time they unify Contacts, Phone, Facetime and Messages into a single app? At least that way I could save two icon spaces (and cut down on the ugly green) in my dock.
I don’t use any Google apps now though. Maps was the last one standing, but Apple Maps has gotten good enough in my country over the past couple of years.
The thing I most want is for the dependence on iTunes for restore/recovery to end. There are millions of people out there for whom their iDevice is their only computer. Surely Apple realize this.
0.1 of the market doesn’t interest Apple. Go boot linux or something!
My parents both have iphones and ipads. Neither can screw them up. Yay me!
I’m pretty sure that more than 0.1% of Apple’s market would prefer a better mapping application. For example: more than 0.1% of the population use transit or cycle.
While the mail and web app are great for most people, I am sure that more than 1 out of 1000 people are using alternatives.
Now using alternatives isn’t much of an issue, since they do exist. How you access those alternatives when there is an enforced default is an issue.
The most limited software in ios is that pesky launcher, but i doubt apple is gonna let its users change anyof these…
Maybe there’ll be a year of frustration-less usability as well.
Just this one gripe?
Wow!
What about this: http://linuxfonts.narod.ru/why-iphones-and-ipads-suck.html ?
Not just one gripe – but the number one gripe.
How come there’s a story on OS News every time Android makes some market gains in Europe. There are certainly frequent comments about Android “dominating” in Europe. It’s odd, then, that the news about iOS making humongous gains in Europe this past year sails past OS News like a fart in the wind, as if it never happened. I, for one, am delighted to see more Europeans turn their backs on Android and its enormous fragmentation problems, quality issues, ugly hardware, and shady information gathering. Let us iOS users rejoice, and use our encrypted iPhones, with up-to-date software, and beautiful design along with our European friends!
Fanboyism is sometimes really annoying.
OSAlert is not a pro-Apple news site. It’s a news site. Not ALL articles are about Apple and they are not ALL just here to praise Apple. Positiv aspects are covered AS WELL AS negativ aspects.
Just to answer your complain about Apple being bashed… Here are the last Apple categorized publications:
iOS 9 wishes — Neither positiv nor negativ… Just open for discussion
Racking Mac Pros — Positiv
Apple pushing music labels to kill free Spotify streaming — Negativ
Apple Won’t Always Rule. Just Look at IBM. — Negativ
My Apple Watch after 5 days — Positiv
China is rewriting the rules of the mobile, and Apple is still winning — Positiv
Apple’s most exciting product since the iPhone — Positiv
Apple reports yet another record quarter — Positiv
5 positive for Apple.
2 negative for Apple.
1 neutral for Apple.
Ahhhh… Facts
Default apps, default launcher, ability to remove built-in software.. This does seem similar to someone else that was forced to do this by EU.
If Apple will gain enough marketshare then there’s a high chance this will happen.
I think that the reason Apple does not allow this is not because they don’t care or don’t listen to customer but specifically because – as Thom says – that feature would dramatically improve Google’s position on iOS and reduce Apple’s control over search on iOS devices.
If the author of the article needs a full blown text editor and a full blown email client and full blown spreedsheet… just buy a Macbook instead of an iPad!!!!
Trying to convert iOS into Mac OS X is plain STUPID. Buy a Macbook and stop complaining. iOS must be dumb simple and damn fast as It used to be in the past.
Apple added a lot of bloat to iOS already, if they keep adding stupid functionality We will have another Android!!!
This is the only thing I want for iOS9: Apple don’t fuck iOS up!!! You already ruined OSX, please don’t ruin iOS too. I beg you Apple.
And there goes post-PC era… right down the drain.
Well, maybe We can think the new Macbook as a post-post-PC era: it has the size/weight of an iPad and the functionality of a Mac.
Well the new MacBook is nothing more than a new iPAD generation with a keyboard attached to it. The vision is the same just the implementation is a bit different. It will all be “wireless”.
The new MacBook?
Hah!! That thing’s not even post-netbook!!