chad bruels

With the upcoming inclusion of MMS for the iPhone, you might be thinking,"Finally, it's actually a usable phone now!"  But what else is it missing?  I can think of a few things that I don't hear anyone talking about and one that I didn't know I wanted until I learned the competition had it.

What does every other phone I've owned have that the iPhone does not?  Sound profiles.  The first phone I ever owned was a Nokia 5185i.  It had a black and white screen, no internet, no music player and no camera, but it had sound profiles.  A little boring right?  Well, let's take this idea one step further and talk about settings profiles, because that's what I really want.  I want the ability to quickly select a profile that controls a wide range of settings instead of having to visit each individual setting to turn it on or off. 

Here is my real-world example.  I am leaving for work in the morning and as I get into my car I set the iPhone to my "Car" profile.  This turns off WiFi, turns on Bluetooth, brings it out of silence mode, and sets the ringtone to "Old Phone" so I can clearly distinguish the phone ringing from my car stereo.  When I arrive at the office, I switch to my "Office" profile which turns WiFi on, Bluetooth off, and silences the phone.  With the WiFi setting 3 clicks away and Bluetooth 4 clicks away, performing these tasks manually on a regular basis is annoying to the point where I just don't do it.  However, if I had settings profiles I could really take control of the state of my iPhone at all times, simply and easily.

This can idea can be improved on by adding another layer.  What if my iPhone knew what state I wanted it to be in wherever I went?  Combine settings profiles with location awareness and then the phone would automatically change to my "Office" profile when I get to the office!  Add a better To-Do list function and make it location aware and your grocery list pops up when you get to the grocery store, your home chores list comes up when you get home, and your list of unfinished tasks you made before leaving work last night is available right when you walk in the door the next morning.

Now all these notifications of what you as a responsible person should be doing each and every moment of every day might get annoying.  Who wants to be nagged nagged nagged all day long, right?  This is where I like the Palm Pre, it has very useful yet unobtrusive notifications.  When the iPhone has to notify you about something you are interrupted and forced to deal with it before you can continue doing anything else.  I'm not asking Apple to copy the Pre's functionality, but it would be nice to see a redesign of notifications on the iPhone.

While we are trying to be responsible adults, we might as well have a better calendar and the improvement I want to see is integration with maps.  The Location field in the calendar is currently only a placeholder for text.  It would be much more useful if I could lookup a location either by being taken to a map, searching for and selecting an address or by assigning an address from one of my contacts.  This could be done in reverse order as well.  You go into Maps, find a restaurant, and create a calendar event for it.  Inviting friends out for dinner or cocktails would be very easy when you send them an invitation directly from the calendar with the date, time and a map of the restaurant.

What do you wish your phone would do?

On the eve of Apple's latest iPhone announcement everyone is clammoring over what version 3.0 of the firmware might include. I know it's terribly cliche, but here are my predictions:

1. Apps still will not be allowed to run in the background.

2. MMS will be included.

3. Cut and paste will be included.

4. Mail messages will be searchable.

5. Turn-by-turn GPS will not be included.

What feature are you hoping for most?

As we eagerly await the first Steve-less Apple keynote in over a decade, here are my predictions for what Apple has in store us.

1. Apple will not announce an iPhone nano.

2. Apple will announce an iPod Touch nano.

3. iPhone tethering will finally be allowed, but everyone will hate the cost and rediculous restrictions.

4. A 32 gb iPhone will be announced and sell for $299 and existing models will have their prices adjusted.

5. The Mac Mini will be refreshed.  Ok, so that's an easy one that everyone expects, but I agree with it.

There you have it.  I hope Apple has something really exceptional for us because I feel this year's Macworld could be somewhat bland, and not because of Phil Schiller mind you.  But the only thing I find myself really excited for is the possibility of a 32 gb iPhone.