Sure, the transparent email and the yet-another-dialer brigade are all well and good, but there are a few things the iPhone doesn't do that I really wish it would. Here's a pair of app suggestions that are probably outside the bounds of the SDK and prime fodder for jailbreak developers, but if someone came up with a way to do them that would make it onto the App Store, I can guarantee you at least one customer.

WiFi Master: If you use your iPhone in a major metropolitan area, you've probably encountered the problem I have in New York City -- scores of access points named 'linksys,' 'netgear' or 'default' or a Starbucks broadcasting AT&T's WiFi network on every corner. Join one, just once, and your iPhone insists on hopping aboard whenever it's in range, whether or not the named network is the one you meant to use or whether you've signed into the web portal for the WLAN (leaving you starved for connectivity, as the 3G connection is superceded by the WiFi link).

Tweaking the network settings is generally a no-no for non-Apple apps, but we need help. Give me a quick way to turn WiFi on and off from the home screen, a way to exclude or include access points by MAC address instead of just by SSID (locking out the rogue 'linksys' networks), and instant display of my assigned DHCP address without diving four screens down into the Settings app. Granted, the Devicescape sign-on automation apps are a good start towards this goal (the Easy WiFi for AT&T iPhones app is worth the $0.99 in aggravation reduction) but I need more active WiFi control in this network-dense environment.

As noted in the comments, the jailbreak app SBSettings covers a lot of these use cases; if you're in a WiFi hot zone and you can't take any more, it might be the tool that pushes you to jailbreak your phone.

GotThis?: One of the favored activities of appoholics, when meeting in their secret underground lairs, is comparing screenfuls of cool iPhone apps to see what they might want to download next. It would be easier if these phone-waving sessions could be automated with -- of course -- an app that would compare your installed suite with that of your neighbor's, point out what he's got that you don't and vice versa, show you most-run statistics and then perhaps link you to the App Store if you've gotta have one of those apps right away.

The problem is that the roster of installed apps is not accessible to a sandboxed app running on the phone, at least not under SDK rules; one way to do this would be to scrape the installed app profile from iTunes and then store it, with the user's permission, on an external website (leveraging the existing iUseThis for iPhone, perhaps). Give this app the interface and location awareness of contact sharer & billionth-app Bump, let users tap iPhones to compare installation profiles, and you'd have a fun social networking tool plus an appoholic enabler of devastating proportions.

What's on your app wishlist? Have you seen apps like these, either in the App Store or in the Cydia Store? Let us know below.

Over at BusinessWeek, Arik Hesseldahl posts his thoughtful wish list for the iPhone. On top of the obvious music wishes (wireless music downloads, zunelike device-to-device sharing, and iTunes ringtones), Hesseldahl considers how the phone might sync seamlessly with various iApps like iPhoto, iCal, Address Book and Mail. On-board data storage would also be a big win for him.

He'd like to see a camera that does both photos and short video clips--and maybe even iChat-like video chat. Bluetooth support is a given in his opinion, but he's looking for a better headset.

I personally disagree. I think Apple should continue bundling low-end earbuds with their products and let us buy the headset we actually want and can comfortably wear.

WWDC is rapidly approaching and along with it we'll get our first preview of the features in Leopard. And so I've started to think seriously about the things that I'd like to see in Leopard. In no particular order:

A New Finder
I've disliked Mac OS X's Finder since Mac OS X first shipped. It's not nearly as streamlined or versatile as it should be. It wasn't until Tiger that the Finder began to handle gracefully a disconnected server volume. I certainly don't miss the days when a disconnected server volume often meant restarting the computer. The Finder has gotten better by degrees, but it's still got a long way to go. For instance, why can't we have the Finder columns autosize itself to filenames so the full filename(s) is visible instead of having the user have to manually resize the column width? And if the Finder can remember window placement, why can't it remember a custom column width that I've manually set on a window? Also, why can't the green plus button be either a zoom/shrink button (as it is now) or a maximize button (a la Windows)? While I personally don't like full-screen window usage, I know that having such a UI element as an optional preference would greatly ease the switching process for Windows users. And why must we resize our windows only from the bottom right corner? Writing about the Finder just makes me angry, so I'll move on now.