7 Things Apple should change about iOS 7 in iOS 8

There are still a few things Apple can improve on

Apple released iOS 7 a few weeks ago and gave users a massive visual overhaul and added more features to their handsets. They copied a few things from Android, Blackberry, and Microsoft’s Windows Phone to give users this improved experience. I've come up with a list of things I think Apple should change when they start thinking and developing iOS 8.

#1: Allow users the ability to delete the default Apps

I still to this day don’t understand why apple doesn't let iOS users uninstall stock apps. If you look at Android phones you can uninstall any app you please and re-download it from the Google Play Store, if you regret booting it off your phone. Apple should change it so you can get rid the apps you don’t want or need and let users fully customize their personal app collection. The only app I see that Apple shouldn't let users delete is the App Store, as that’s the most important app iOS has giving users 2 million apps to choose from.

#2:       Have Apps on the Home Screen show more important information

Another gripe I have with iOS 7 is that when you look at the home screen the only apps that tell you anything significant are the Calendar and Message apps. These two apps at least tell you if you have notifications and the Calendar app changes daily telling you the date and day of the week. I wish Apple gave the same functionality to all of its other apps like its Email app would be more beneficial to users if it flashed names of those who recently emailed you. If users were given more important information more quickly on their home screens it would mean they could use their phones more efficiently and effectively. I really like how Windows Phone does exactly what I described above, but unfortunately it’s hard to recommend, as it has an anemic app market place.

#3:        Give App makers a chance to make bigger app icons so they can make live widgets

Apple should allow apps to have different sizes, as it could give the next iteration of iOS a great way to have live widgets. I wish I could have the weather app take up a quarter of my home screen on iOS and show me the 5-day forecast for the week. A few other apps that would benefit from a blow up would be the Calendar app and Social media apps or RSS feeds. Android users already have this functionality, so watch out when Apple does it because they’ll be the first ones to have created live widgets.

The only problem I see with live widgets is that they are constantly updating, which means they drain battery quickly and that means Apple probably wouldn't want to give developers the ability to make such apps, but it sure would be nice. 

#4:     Give users more color options and keyboard customization

When you use iOS there is no way to change its keyboard color or layout. If Apple implemented a few different colors for it wouldn't be that difficult to code into iOS. I also would like it if you could be change your keyboard to black or grey on black iPhones because the current white keyboard on iOS 7 gives the black phones a weird contrast as it makes the screen look smaller.  

One of my biggest annoyances with the iOS keyboard aside from the color options is that there is no .com button in Safari, which would make web surfing quicker and easier. 

#5:       Include more Power User Apps

Currently there are no apps that tell you detailed information your phone's performance on iOS when it comes to your CPU, RAM, or battery usage. Yes, I know in settings you can look up your battery usage and it will say how long you've left your on standby and how much you've used it. I’d rather have a more comprehensive battery app that showed me what apps I used the most and which ones drain the most amount of battery too.

A CPU and RAM app would be great edition to iOS as it would tell users how much they are pushing their phones while using applications. I’d like to know what really maxes out my phone’s CPU to figure out what sorts of apps I should run less often. For those who don’t know most of time at idle your phone is running at 100-300Mhz usually and when you do something intensive on it, and then you’ll see it ramp up to 1GHz or higher depending on the application and your phone’s CPU. The following scenario described above is what I saw when using Android devices when observing CPU usage.

#6:       Change what your default apps are

iOS 7 currently doesn't let users choose what apps they want to open internet links and photos. For example when you’re sent a link from someone in Messages and you click on it you’ll be bounced to Safari. One of the most used and downloaded apps on Apple mobile OS is Google’s Chrome browser, so if you could change where those links open up in that would be a big plus. There are tons of photo apps that could replace Apple’s Photos app so they would benefit from this change too. I also would like it if I when I get directions from the Yelp App that they by default would be opened in Google Maps rather than in Apple Maps. 

#7:      Let users have empty space on between apps on app pages

Whenever you have apps on a page in iOS they are always lined up in the same exact way on every page. This is a little pet peeve of mine, so I say give us the gaps! I don’t know why the gaps make a difference to Apple because it doesn't harm their OS in any way when it comes to performance. 

Conclusion:

iOS 8 probably isn't going to be around for another year or so meaning we'll have to wait and see if Apple addresses the above issues. I really like iOS 7 and its improvements to the camera and the live wallpapers are flat color design look nice even though we've seen them before on Android and Windows phones. If Apple can amp up the customization in their next iOS release I think they'll be able to win over some power Android users and those who are deeply in love with their Windows Phones.