Skip to Content

Two things iOS 4.2.1 is missing

by David Winograd Dec 23rd 2010 at 6:00PM

I love my iPhone and iPad, but two slight revisions to iOS would make my holiday wishes come true. These may not be earth-shattering to you, but they would make my life much simpler.

Mail

It's lovely that iOS pushes mail to my devices, but Apple just didn't go far enough with it. When mail is pushed, or fetched for that matter, the only things pushed are what belong in your inbox. I have around 20 IMAP mailboxes that mail gets filtered into using Rules in Mac Mail, and nothing gets pushed to them. I verified this with Apple.

Since I spend a good deal of time with no Wi-Fi, and in many cases no cellular connection either, what I would love is to have an option where all mail gets pushed to me, regardless of what IMAP mailbox it's in. That way I can take my iDevice on a train or a plane and catch up on all my email while offline.

I understand that this would be a drain on the battery, but if you were able to do it using a toggle, and not a persistent setting, I don't think it would matter. You would use it when you want and not be bothered with the power drain when you're not. I have a feeling this would help out a lot of people.

See the other wish I've got right after the break.


Bluetooth

I have two Bluetooth headsets of the exact same make and model number. I also have three old Griffin BlueTrip Bluetooth receivers. The problem is that both my headsets are displayed with the same name on two different Devices lines in Settings. The same goes with the receivers. Three lines show up, all with exactly the same text.

The problem is that I have no way of knowing which is which when trying to select one. I may get lucky and hit it the first time, but it may take three times to access the correct one. This seems like an easily correctable oversight. What I would like is the ability to edit the names of Bluetooth devices. That's it. It really doesn't seem like a big deal, but having the capability to edit names would make my life so much easier, and allow for multiple devices of the same build to be used with the same phone.

What do you think? Would these changes help you out as well?



View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

Odds and ends

I love my iPhone and iPad, but two slight revisions to iOS would make my holiday wishes come true. These may not be earth-shattering to...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum Comment Moderation Enabled. Your comment will appear after it is cleared by an editor.

60 Comments

Filter by:
Carson J Gallo

I totally agree with u on the mail being pushed into folders if u use rules. I've been saying the same damm thing for weeks.

December 25 2010 at 3:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dan Pritchard

You know, some headsets let you rename them. My Jawbone ICON let me do that with the manufacturer's software, on my Mac. The iPhone just shows whatever the device reports--it now shows my custom name. Check with your device's documentation to see if it will let you rename it.

December 24 2010 at 11:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jimmy

bluetooth aside, can TUAW please stop with the "one more paragraph after the break" crap? I understand the economics of page views, but if I'm going to click through from my RSS reader, I'd like more than a sentence or two...

December 24 2010 at 9:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Karen

If Exchange can push email to folders, I think that's a reasonable expectation for iOS 4 as well. It would certainly improve my iPhone experience.

December 24 2010 at 5:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Karen

I think your point about push to mail folders is an excellent one. Mail should be pushed to folders; if this feature is available in other IMAP mail systems (Exchange) why not for Apple Mail and MobileMe?

December 24 2010 at 5:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
John Farrand

Talking about small additions to iOS.. I don't know if anyone else needs this, but even 10 years ago on Motorola phones I could program an Alarm to be Vibrate Only. That's it.

In the 3 years I've owned an iPhone, I still can't figure put a way to do this. If Apple doesn't want anyone to change text alert sounds, and for all 90+ million phones out there to sound alike for received texts, then fine. But how hard would it be to add "vibrate" to the list of alert sounds?

What if you're in a meeting, an need to make sure an alarm goes off, silently? What if someone doesn't want to wake their wife? There's no avoiding an annoying audible. I just can't figure out why my venerable Razr could do things that this amazing phone won't?

December 24 2010 at 1:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Geodomebiz

Not so large a concern about bt device names, but it would be nice, sure.
Mail I can see getting some enhancements, rules chief among them, or even smart folders. Chiefly, I'd like to see the ability to save attachments to iDisk, and to send attachments outbound, or even share a link live from iDisk via a message.

December 24 2010 at 1:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Paul Banbury

Voice commands? Mine work when I hold the home button. I do like them and would miss them.

Beyond my " gotta have", I wish for a notification drawer and status icons that do stuff. That is where I would put the BT toggle, and settings for wifi, power, data roaming, etc

December 24 2010 at 12:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Josue

And Voice Commands! it was something really stupid to get them left behind.

December 24 2010 at 11:05 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
LEA

Apple needs to provide a single place for all messaging. Something like social feeds from BB ! I have to open 3-5 applications to get to all my communications while on a BB everything is located in one place.

December 24 2010 at 9:00 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.