Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone
The iPhone's "Most Wanted"
Despite the fact that no one can even buy an iPhone yet, people are already describing what its next set of features ought to be. There's a thread at the iPhone forum that lists what they're calling "The Seven Most Wanted iPhone Widgets" (Basically, they just picked seven Dashboard widgets they'd like ported to the iPhone). I'm not as convinced. Here they are:- iTunes Stats. Basically, this displays an exhaustive amount of trivial information regarding your iTunes library, like "Number of songs with no artist info" and "Number of playlists." I can't imagine strolling through the mall with my iPhone and suddenly needing to know how many of my songs are unrated. But that's me.
- Hangman. Yeah, OK. Games are fun.
- RSS Feeds. Call me an old stick-in-the-mud, but I can't think of a single RSS feed that I must have immediately available every second of the day. I figure I can wait the thirty minutes it may take me to get to my computer. Pass.
- Sudoku. See #2.
- Harmonic. Ok, so it *might* be fun to confirm a song's lyrics on-the-go. I said "might."
- Flappie. Um, no.
- TV Scheduler. I already have a tool that I use to monitor what's on my TV. It's called, "my TV." It works great.
Thanks, Chris!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Alex said 9:54PM on 5-23-2007
My number one feature that I think the iPhone needs is iChat mobile. Having AIM on my phone when I'm within a wireless network is pretty much the sweetest thing that could happen ever.
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Charles said 10:00PM on 5-23-2007
I don't care so much about widgets on the iPhone. But I'm desperately hoping for compatibility with the Nike+ system. Then I can dump my iPod nano and just use the iPhone when I go running.
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starwxrwx said 10:03PM on 5-23-2007
RSS reading would be useful. Say you're waiting for someone and a bit bored - bing! Whip out your iPhone and catch up on the latest news while sitting around for 10 minutes, drinking a coffee or something.
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Dave Peters said 10:04PM on 5-23-2007
I agree with the widget that you want, Dave. Cingular/AT&T has horrible reception all around the area in which I live. I wish they would have gone Verizon, they have excellent coverage in my area. Sigh.
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brendan Sheehan jnr said 10:17PM on 5-23-2007
Here's my list of 7 widgtes I would want for the iPhone:
1. Dictionary widget
2. Unit-Converter widget
3. BBC Radio widget
4. Wikipedia widget
5. Stopwatch/timer widget
6. Tile Game or Rubik's Cube widget
7. what the heck "Whoopee Cushin" widget!
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Dewey said 10:19PM on 5-23-2007
I agree, I wish they woulda went with Verizon. My two years on my phone are up in at the end of the week and this would have worked perfectly to get a Verizon iPhone. I also agree with Alex. iChat mobile would be would be my most used feature.
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Leonard Nimrod said 10:30PM on 5-23-2007
What a bad list of widgets.
Here is what I expect to see on the 1G iPhone.
• Calculator
• Dictionary/Thesaurus
• Flight Tracker
• ESPN
• People/Yellow Pages
• Stickies
• Translation
• Unit Convertor
• WiFI HotSpot Locator
• Weather
• World Clock
Yeah, those are default wigets for OS X "Tiger".
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Erick Erickson said 10:33PM on 5-23-2007
I hope that they include voice functions. With having no tactile buttons for dialing -- particularly for the inevitable person on the road who wants to use it to call someone -- being able to say "Call Home" would be handy.
Given that it is running OS X and OS X has that capability, it shouldn't be too hard, but I haven't found anything mentioning this as a feature.
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I See Connections Everywhere... said 10:58PM on 5-23-2007
What I NEED on my iPhone is a GUI version of Filemaker, not the lame excuse they created for PDAs. Now that's what would turn this into a pocket business machine. And while I'm at it, Quicken would be a good choice as well.
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Jamie said 11:54PM on 5-23-2007
Any widget that fills in the missing hole will be good: http://curmi.com/blog/2007/05/06/thoughts-on-the-iphone/
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clmensch said 12:06AM on 5-24-2007
Jeez, Dave, were you in a bad mood when you wrote this post? Talk about snarky. Why can't some people like to catch up on the news without having to resort to a full blown browser, or find out what's on TV so they can get home in time to set the DVR, or even play with Flappie as a fun little diversion. Annoying post.
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turkish said 12:55AM on 5-24-2007
The commentary to these is just unbelievably short-sighted and mindless. You do understand that people want functions on their iPhone for situations outside of emergencies, right? How could anyone NOT want an RSS reader? By your logic, there shouldn't be a web browser, OR photos, or music (i mean, those are all only a half hour away at my computer). . . maybe you should just get a RAZR?
RSS will let people browse the internets without using all the bandwidth of going through entire websites (which will be helpful since we'll be sucking info at slow-ass EDGE speeds on a tiny screen)—yeah, who would want to do that?
Earth to Dave Caolo: this is a miniature computer and people want whatever is on their computer on the iPhone. That's the whole point. It's not an emergency communicator, it is a tiny computer. It makes it so i don't have to go to my office to check tech news today if hangin' out at the park is feeling like a better option, or if i am on a road-trip i can just find out those song lyrics right now instead of forgetting i ever was curious about that one weird line about Gary being on trial and drunk before we left bed?
who would want to see a tv schedule on your phone when you could just go home, turn on the tv and look??!?! are you kidding me? you must have a lot of free time if you think that.
the question isn't what can the iPhone do that my computer can't do better, but what NEW ways will i use a tiny computer when it's always with me in my pocket. to me RSS, for example, seems about 10x more useful for me on a mobile micro computer than on my desktop.
I know TUAW is a blog, so i should expect opinions to accompany the news, but christ PLEASE someone stop this trend of totally mindless unconsidered posts that continually spew forth like diarrhea. is anyone on the other side filtering this stuff? given what gets posted on here, i can't even imagine what scores below the threshold. as it is, only 1 in 20 posts actually is worth reading, please don't make it impossible to get through those 20—cause that one good post usually has a good bit of new info i don't see anywhere else.
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Brian W said 1:08AM on 5-24-2007
The big question is...
#30. Will Dashcode create iPhone widgets?
from -- http://www.fairlyuseless.com/2007/01/09/50-questions-about-the-apple-iphone/
Do you think they will let people load any widget they want? Are widgets "sand-boxed" (cutoff from the important stuff)? I mean come on do you think there is a widget that can take down the internet? How could a widget disrupt a cellular network?
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dave said 1:21AM on 5-24-2007
You know what? I was in kind of a bad mood. Sorry for the excessive snark.
I don't own a cell phone, and I really don't see why people need to be "connected" 24/7. But that's me, and maybe you see things differently. Live and let live.
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Stephen said 1:43AM on 5-24-2007
How about the ability to drive an external monitor and keyboard/mouse. Then I would need to drag a laptop around. Most of my daily work is all web-based, a real keyboard and larger screen would be nice.
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turkish said 2:10AM on 5-24-2007
Nothing like an insightful post on what widgets someone wouldn't want on their iphone by someone who doesn't have, or see a use for, a cellphone.
This is exactly what i'm talking about being wrong with this site. There are an awful lot of these kinds of posts for every one that is truly useful. Obviously I believe in this blog's potential enough to take the time to point out my dissatisfaction, i want it to improve, and i am certain i am not alone.
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Adrian vG said 2:16AM on 5-24-2007
Calculator
Unit converter
Timer
Stickies/Notepad with DRAWING tools
Skype :)
Adium :)
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Joram Oudenaarde said 2:40AM on 5-24-2007
Personally I'd love to see the following things added, integrated or as an optional download;
- Flickr (somehow Apple and Flickr are a perfect match imho)
- An option for TomTom (or a similar navigation system). Google maps is nice, but I don't think many people know how it works, or even trust that system (at least in Europe i think)
- Not sure if it does, but Bluetooth headset support
- Skype, or an option to make it a skype/VOIP phone when you're at home
- Additional providers in Europe. Word is that they're taking T-Mobile or Vodafone... which I personally detest. Europe has too many providers too be able to just pick one of them. I hope they'll pick T-Mobile ánd Vodafone, ánd Orange, and on top of that one or two local providers as well. It's a bit more work, but there's no way on earth that I'm going to take Vodafone ;)
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Widgetop said 4:41PM on 9-17-2007
We will bring widgets to the iPhone:
http://www.widgetop.com/mobile.html
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sam said 3:15AM on 5-24-2007
Eh....
RSS could be useful for things other than news. For example, there are RSS feeds for late bills, emergency type stuff, etc. I have an RSS feed for my car alarm - it is obviously nice to have up to the minute stats on stuff like that.
As for Harmonic - that stuff is kinda gimicky. I'd much rather have a real guitar tuner than a program that can tell me what song I'm listening to.
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