Four User-Driven Demands for iPhone OS 4

What 2010 holds for the iPhone

The New Year will undoubtedly bring a new wave of iPhone products including updates to the iPhone, numerous new apps, and a possible tablet computer. (It is rumored that Apple's announcements in January and June may include a tablet device dubbed "iSlate", and an updated iPhone that is no longer exclusive to AT&T's network.

As Apple creates the next generation software for these devices, I suggest top user interface advancements that are justified by today's popular mobile user scenarios.

1. Speech to Text Message

Typing a text message on the small on-screen keyboard is especially difficult while briskly walking and is prohibited in many jurisdictions while driving. The next generation iPhone and other smartphones deserve speech-to-text capability so that a text message can be dictated into the phone and then be sent as text.

A new iPhone app, Dragon Dictation, does perform reasonably reliable speech-to-text. But it is a separate app that users must launch each time they want to speak. It would be absurd if the iPhone on-screen keyboard were a separate application that users were required to launch each time they wanted to type! The same is true for speech input.

In addition to "speech to text message", the full ability to use speech-to-text and text-to-speech is beneficial in many use scenarios:

• Read your new incoming text message or email (also helpful while driving or while listening to music)
• Read a web page or article to you while driving
• Compose emails by speaking into the phone
• Enter a web URL by speaking rather than typing

Apple's iPhone OS 4 should fully and natively support speech for any new iPhones and tablet devices.

2. File Transfer, a.k.a. 'Use my phone as flash memory'

Smartphones are everywhere, and they contain ample memory. Yet so many of us also carry around a separate flash memory USB stick in order to transfer files to colleagues, or to put our Powerpoint or Keynote slides onto another computer for a presentation.

It would be easy for iPhone OS 4 to support wireless Bluetooth transfer of files to and from the iPhone. All the popular user scenarios for USB flash memory would be replaced by the phone — except that a phone allows this to be wireless and to happen as part of a device you already carry around.

• Distribute a file to one or more colleagues at work, whether in the hallway or in a meeting.
• Transfer a file onto my phone as a backup.
• Walk up to any printer (even at a conference or a location I'm visiting) and send a file from my phone to the printer.
• Share a calendar event or an "e-business card" wirelessly.

Hopefully 2010 is the year when Apple will provide user-friendly support for mobile file transfer.

3. Messaging in All Popular Formats 

The native text messaging user interface of the iPhone already does an adequate job. But it does not support other popular instant messaging formats — Skype, Twitter, AIM, Jabber, IRC, etc — which all require different applications and do not provide a complete, user-friendly messaging platform.

Many of the numerous third-party applications for these popular messaging formats will disconnect you as soon as you open another app. For example, if you close the Skype app to browse the web or launch any other app, you are taken offline from Skype even though you might still be interested and available for instant messaging.

Some third-party messaging apps use "push" functionality to keep you connected in the background and send an alert to your phone when you receive a new message. However, if you have two or more messaging apps operating in the background, that means you have to navigate to each one of them when you do want to go offline (for a meeting or a movie).

(For more information about the available apps, read this review of 10 popular instant messaging apps for iPhone.)

If Apple includes a user-friendly interface for messaging in all popular formats, it would allow you to stay connected to all networks whenever you choose, to view and reply to all your new messages on all networks from one user interface, and to easily go 'offline' or 'unavailable' from all networks in a single step.

It could all be powered by the built-in "Messages" app with plug-ins or drivers for each network. However Apple chooses to technically implement this — whether through the Messages app, background processing for other apps, or a 'Notification Panel' like Android — it is clear that user needs justify a simpler and more powerful messaging experience across all popular formats.

4. Tethering

Using an iPhone as a modem to provide an Internet connection for your laptop is a popular demand. It makes sense for users on the go who want to use their laptop when a wifi network isn't available but a cell signal is.

AT&T says that tethering support is coming to customers in the U.S. For now, work-arounds and jailbreaking are the only option. From a user needs perspective, tethering is an obvious requirement that will eventually be officially supported for the masses. Apple should push AT&T to make tethering easy and available to everyone.

Putting Users First

Apple does an outstanding job at engineering user-friendly experiences. Let's hope the popular user scenarios described above are included in Apple's calculations for new iPhone releases in 2010.