What I’m hoping for from iOS 7

iOS 7 is the talk of the town, and everybody wants in when it comes to speculation. The official announcement about the upcoming WWDC this summer leaves little room for doubt that a new operating system is most definitely on the cards.

Personally, when Jonathon Ive, Apple’s charismatic Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, makes his announcement, I’d like to see him make a list of 7 improvements that would take my iPhone from good to great and leagues ahead of the Android HTC One that caught my eye not so long ago.

Here’s my wishlist of 7 improvements that would rock my iOS world. Well, a girl can hope, can’t she…?

1. Say no to “flat design”, yes to beautiful apps

Mobile operating systems are just that – mobile! There’s no reason for them to stick to traditional web standards when there are responsive designs that can adapt to a variety of resolutions and screen types. I’d like to see iOS 7 take this to heart, so we can avoid some of the eyesores we’ve seen in iOS 6.

These issues are really obvious in the new podcasts app, for example. The interface is horrible, and I just can’t figure out why the guys at Apple thought it was a good idea!

Not an example to follow

A flat design completely smothers all of iOS’s lovely 3D and shadow effects. Ok, so you don’t see many 3D effects on iOS these days, but as long as shadow effects are well thought out and don’t annoy the user, why change things?

2. Redesign the notifications center

As soon as I opened my iPhone 5’s notifications center, it reminded me of early versions of Android – there are so many areas to improve upon and change!

iOS 7 will, I hope, allow the user to choose their own widgets, without having to detour through the configuration menu. A widget for email, another for calendar, all directly via the Notifications Center. While we’re talking about widgets, what’s up with those default stock market ones?! If Apple’s interested, I’ll bet I can find hundreds of widgets that are nicer and, crucially, more useful than that horrible Yahoo one.

Last, but not least: include the date in the Notifications Center! It’s not very intuitive and annoys me pretty much every day!

3. Let us uninstall Apple apps

Along the same lines, I’d be really happy if Apple finally allows us to uninstall the stock Apple apps like Passbook, Stocks and Safari.

I understand that Apple wants to offer its own apps on the iPhone, but everything has its limits. Apple heads have surely had enough time to see exactly how many people actually use these apps, and will finally realize that it’s time to let users free themselves from the burden!

4. Improve Spotlight

Spotlight’s a bit like the Notifications Center. It’s a useful tool that’s got a lot of potential, but it’s still pretty far from being perfect. For example, why not just add the result type (contact, application, etc,) directly onto the search screen? If you’re not totally sure what I mean, take a look at the video – it explains it perfectly and is quite the talk of the iPhone community!

5. Move from one app to another in a simple swipe

Here’s another function that someone’s decided to make a video about – simplifying the process of switching from one app to another. Hopefully a swipe will be enough on iOS 7.

At the moment, you need to press the home button twice to open the running apps menu. Then you need to scroll through a list of irrelevant programs to reach the one you’re looking for. My poor fingers can’t take this indignity any longer, Apple – do something!

6. Make it easier to close apps

If they’re already improving the app management system, Apple is more than welcome to do something about closing apps. In this area, Android is much more advanced.

The photo below illustrates the differences between the two operating systems really well. Android uses an entire page to show you your app management options, and closing them just requires you to swipe left to right. Compare the iPhone, where the whole process only takes advantage of a tiny portion of the screen, meaning the process is much more fiddly.

7. Improve the notifications summary on the welcome screen

The final improvement I’d like to see on iOS 7 are complete notifications on the start screen. One possible solution would be to swipe the icon of the app that’s notifying you. Then, perhaps a bubble could pop up with further information. You could then see immediately if the notification referred to an update that was available in the app store, or if you had just received an email, for example.

This video gives you a good idea of the kind of thing I’m hoping for!

In the past, Apple made a point of offering sensible, simple solutions that focused on what users needed and wanted to do. For me, iOS 7 could simply add these 7 “little” improvements, and it would already be my dream phone.