We won’t get a peak at iOS 11 until Apple’s WWDC event in June—but that doesn’t mean we can’t start hoping for things already. There are fixes we’d like to see, as well as new features that could make our iPhones even more useful.
Long before we see what Apple has in store for the next version of its mobile operating system, we want to make our desires known—so here they are:
1. Group FaceTime chats
There are a number of apps that can do multi-user video chats. However, it’s the convenience and accessibility of FaceTime that makes it such a popular choice for video chats.
The one thing it’s lacking (other than an Android app) is group FaceTime chats. It’s kind of surprising that Apple hasn’t jumped on this feature yet already, but adding a multi-user FaceTime chat option would really be a killer-feature for iOS. If Apple could find an intuitive way of integrating it right into iMessage, that’d be even better.
2. Customizable Control Center
Apple has never been big on giving its users the power to customize their devices. However, the one place where this would really be helpful is in the swipe up Control Center. There are so many different things you can do with an iPhone—and we all use it in slightly different ways.
With the redesign of Control Center, you now have to swipe over to get to audio controls, which can be really frustrating for those who are always listening to music and podcasts. Apple has shown us has recently with its customizable controls in the MacBook Pro Touch Bar that it can do this in a way that still feels intuitive. Having easy access to the toggles and controls that we actually use every day would be a great new feature in iOS 11.
3. Using third-party apps as default
This is one that Apple has been fighting since the day it launched the App Store. Although we can finally do stuff like replace the keyboard with a third-party one, we still can’t fully replace the functionality of apps like Mail, Maps, and Calendar. If someone sends you an address, it will always open up in Apple Maps, no matter how much you like Google Maps more. It’s bit silly, especially considering the fact that Apple has finally allowed its users to delete its apps in iOS 10.
In Android, you are given a prompt to perform the action in a selection of apps that you have downloaded (or you can set the default within Settings). It’d be great to see Apple finally hand over the last key of customization to its users and let us leave its proprietary apps behind if we so choose.
4. A keyboard that competes with the Google Keyboard
If Apple isn’t going to let us use other apps as our defaults, it could at improve its apps to be able to compete with the third party options. This is true for pretty much everything from Mail to Notes. One of the biggest apps that could use an update is the iOS keyboard, which pales in comparison to Google’s new keyboard it released for iOS last year.
The Google keyboard has a ton of cool features built right into it such as the ability to perform Google searches, find reaction gifs, and even emoji prediction. It’s easy enough to just install the Google keyboard, but we’d love to see Apple give us a reason to actually use its own proprietary keyboard again.
5. Dark Mode (movie theater mode)
Image by Flickr user Japanexperterna.se@N08/17468693762/.
This feature has been rumored for some time now, but we’d love to see Apple deliver on a true Dark Mode on its iOS devices. We have Night Shift, which is great, but it doesn’t take the place of a Dark Mode that can be used in places like movie theaters and restaurants.
Certain apps like Google Maps and Apple Books actually already have similar functions, so it’d be nice to see Apple integrate the mode across the entire operating system.