Four things we’d like to see in the next iOS

Widgets: I’m not too hot on this, not a big fan of widgets getting in the way on the homescreens. Prefer to see Dashboard style widgets where you double tap the homescreen to see the activity dock and you find widgets on the unused space above it. And you can swipe that unused space sideways to see more screens.

Settings: This is smart. Shortcuts for the most used Settings item acting like folders to reveal the options available for it.

Notifications: Nice. Could work with my widgets idea, combined to increase the use of the two layers of screens. The thumbnail view of the app would be a cool option to have but it certainly would eat up more processor cycle and memory. There’s Mobile Notifier for jailbroken iPhones and its developer was recently picked up by Apple to work in Cupertino.

Favorite Friends: Useless as far as my usage is concerned. I don’t contact people through their phone numbers that often so the phone app is one of my least used app. Hardly ever text them either. For those who still use the iPhone the traditional way though, it could be useful. Reminds me of Matt Gemmell’s Favorites app.

Introducing The iCard

parislemon:

Not surprising to hear that NFC is coming to the iPhone given that this is already built into the Nexus S. But good to hear nonetheless.

Interesting that it’s said to be built into the iPad 2 as well…

They key here is it being tied into your iTunes account (or some variation). That would be beyond a massive win for both NFC and Apple.

Imagine if they could get a cut of all those transactions —I mean, just think about that for a second. It’s hard to know what to say about that. Something with a lot of superlatives.

the Microsoft of 2011 doesn’t compete effectively with the Apple of 2007

Paul Thurrot compared the first three months of Windows Phone 7 to the iPhone’s first three months back in 2007. Microsoft has publicly released nothing in three months to improve WP7 while Apple from August to October 2007 had released bug and security fixes, new features and new services for iOS.

iPhone alarm didn’t ring on New Year’s Day?

Kris: iPhone alarm bug on New Year Eve? Sounds weird.
Me: no it doesn’t because it didn’t ring. 😉
Kris: LOL. Just to sign that this “Hey, happy new year. I’m not ringing coz.. You know, it’s new year!” reason? 😀
Me: ya iya lah, either you’re still awake from overnight partying or you’re so tired you don’t wanna wake up. Fixes itself on Jan 3rd.
Kris: Well, people should stop calling it as a bug. I propose something more fancy: It’s a feature.
Me: I’m surprised nobody picked up this angle when they reported in yesterday. LOL. Apple is looking after your afterparty needs.

Duplicate songs in iPod app

I’ve got a number of duplicate listings of songs in my iPhone’s iPod app when iTunes clearly has no duplicates of them. The strangest thing is the duplicate songs have modified artist IDs.

I’ve got the album The First Blooming by Kara, a K-pop group. The album is listed twice, one with KARA as its artist ID spelled out in all caps, the other with Kara (카라) in both latin and Hangul.

Because the iPod app sees the songs as by different artists, it has them listed in separate entries giving me two albums, listing the same songs. That is certainly not how it is in iTunes. There’s only one copy of the album and its songs in iTunes’ library listed as by Kara (카라).

I unsynced the songs so the iPhone has no songs in its storage and synced them back in but they came back as they were. I don’t recall this ever happening before. I wonder, has anyone ever come across something like this?