Every morning I fire up my tablet and check out Zite, my favorite personalized magazine app. Today I an article greeted me from BGR (Zach Epstein) – The most annoying things iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 won’t fix. I read it, laughed and sort of shook my head. The iPhone 5 isn’t even announced yet and writers are all too happy to pick at it. Let’s take a look at one particular set of arguments:
- “Awful” Auto-correct - Zach claims the iOS auto-correct is awful. All I can say to this one is that my personal experience is different. I rarely have frustrating weird auto-corrects.
- Widgets - I completely understand this criticism. I understand that some people want widgets. I also understand why it’s not happening in iOS which an operating system for the masses, not always the power users. The version of the article that I linked to talks about the Stock App and the lack of a Wi-Fi / Bluetooth toggle. The version I read on Zite mentioned the Calendar App (which shows today’s date, contrary to the article at the time). Either way, some of it is valid, the rest leads me to believe that if a user wants those features they are better with Android.
- Time- and location-based actions - Yep, I agree here too generally. Location based reminders are mixed at best. Until Apple gets that down, I feel like they should wait on location-based actions. There’s no excuse for not having better time-based actions though. Apple has a foot in the door in iOS 6, but I’m shocked they didn’t try to do more.
- Better email client - This one I disagree with. I’ve never had an issue with gmail through the iPhone mail app. It just works for me. If I need to do power emailing I’m on a PC anyway. In fact, I’ve argued before that the iCloud Mail App is the problem and it’s what keeps me from leaving gmail.
- Automatic app updates - I disagree here too. Automatic updates lead to user experience issues for the masses. I’ve had a handful of times where an update forced me to delete the app and freshly install. For me, that’s no problem, for the average iPhone user, it is a problem that causes frustration.
- Actionable notifications – Zach, if we’re going to agree on one thing, it’s definitely this one. Why can’t I just swipe away a txt or iMessage and make that gesture “marked as read”? I don’t want to open the app Apple! I read it already!
- Bigger display - This is subjective. Zach has his points, but I feel like many of the Android phones are way too big. I have a tablet if I need a bigger screen, the iPhone is for me when I’m on the go, not heavy video or web use.
- Sharing data between apps – I see Zach’s point. But I also understand Apple’s. I’ll take security at the expense of functionality (Apple’s reasoning) on a mobile device.
- Enough with the skull quake - I don’t think I’ve ever run into this particular problem, but I generally don’t have tons of messages incoming, nor do I set that stuff to vibrate. Or, maybe I just have a fat head and don’t noticed the skull quake as much. Ha!