I was reading a thread in which the poster opined that the iPhone 3GS finally solves all the issues that he had with his v1 iPhone.   That got me thinking: With all the great improvements between the new hardware and the new OS 3.0, did Apple truly fix every issue I have had with the iPhone?   After some sober thought, I ‘ve concluded that it hasn ‘t quite fixed everything just yet.   Here ‘s what I ‘d still like to see:

1. Home Screen Management:  There ‘s still no way to organize your home screens short of sliding applications all over creation.  New applications go in the first available spot instead of being able to be categorized.   With as many apps as I have, I like similar-purposed apps (travel, shopping, media, games, etc) to be on the same page(s), and the pages I use the most towards the front.   

2. Ability To Save/Edit Documents:  Even with Docs To Go debuting, you still cannot receive an email with a document and edit it on the iPhone “ you still must have a computer act as the middleman.   While you can view a document (which I will admit is the most needed function), you still cannot save it somewhere (say in a ‘Documents ‘ app) to review later.   You could simply save the email, but this adds substantially to the mail space quota that many organizations have.   You could save it to Air Share, Discover, or any similar app, but again the computer must be the middleman.   Imagine if you could hold down on a document link in an email and have a ‘Save to Documents ‘ item pop up.  Bliss.

3. Remove Stock Apps: I don ‘t track stocks.  I use weather apps with a lot more capability than the Weather app.   Who needs the Contacts app when there ‘s a contacts tab in the Phone app?   Don ‘t need ‘em, don ‘t want ‘em, but I can ‘t get rid of them, except by banishing them to the last screen.  Yes, I know, I could jailbreak and handle this a few different ways, but this is about what Apple needs to do “ not what I could do.

4. Background Apps: OK, I ‘ll say it “ some apps should run in the background “ or at least be able to act on external events.  IRC clients, IM clients, maybe a weather alert app “ all examples of perfectly legitimate needs for apps to be able to work in the background.  Now while I understand Apple ‘s point that having apps slinging traffic around all day will have a potentially devastating toll on battery life, a balance needs to be reached.  Apple ‘s own Phone and Mail apps run in the background “ but the data usage is both limited by the app and managed by the user.   Surely something besides background notifications (which as far as I can tell really have nothing to do with background processing at all “ they are little more than glorified text messages coming in) can be worked out.   For example, an IM client, upon receiving an incoming IM, wakes up and notifies the user.  Or perhaps a weather app plays an alarm sound and displays a message about a tornado warning.    These are things that are do-able, just not done.

5.  Disable Landscape Mode: Sometimes it ‘s ME that ‘s in landscape mode, not the iPhone.   I sometimes like to read news or surf the web while lying on my side in bed “ but the iPhone is determined to keep everything oriented up.   So we play this game, tilting the iPhone just enough to keep it from rotating.   Why can ‘t we temporarily disable it when needed?

6. SMS Sounds: We can configure sounds for just about everything else “ why can ‘t we choose a custom-made sound for an SMS alert? 

7. Voicemail Through WiFi: As of now, your visual voicemail can only be obtained through the cellular network.   This can be a problem if you are roaming and have data roaming off or simply have no cell signal (say at work or at your vacation house, etc), as you will get no voicemail and no voicemail alerts until you enable data or reconnect to the cell network.   If you are overseas (say on a business trip), enabling roaming data to get your voicemails can be very expensive.  On my last trip to Europe, 3 voicemails cost me over $40 in data costs!   Given AT&T ‘s desire to keep as much data off the network to enhance overall performance, this is one change that should be a win-win for all.   Well, unless you ‘re counting on that overseas revenue.

8. VCF, ICS Support: You simply can ‘t do anything with an emailed contact or calendar entry unless the email account is an Exchange account.   I haven ‘t checked in 3.0, but under 2.0 you couldn ‘t use them from the Web either.   This is shortsighted.   What makes it bizarre is that you can send a contact as a VCF even though you cannot receive them as such.

9. Headphones: Just because I plug in headphones does not mean that I want the iPod to immediately play.  Really.  Make it configurable.

10. Video Searching: The drag bar is nice, but imprecise.  I often have to re-watch a segment to get back to where I was interrupted.  

11. Monthly Calendar Entries: We still cannot add a calendar entry for something that occurs on the 3rd Thursday (or 2nd Tuesday, etc) of each month.

12. Future Calendar Entries: You just received an invitation to a wedding on September 14th, 2010.   Hope your tapping finger is limbered up, you ‘ll be there a while getting that month up so that you can add the entry.

There ‘s probably a few more items that I could add to this list “ and probably more that someone else might that don ‘t bother me enough to have noticed.    How about you?   What would you change in iPhone 4.0?

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