What does iPhone OS 3.0 need from a programming perspective?

Question

iPhone OS 3.0 is being announced and previewed next week (March 17).

We all know the feature set users want. Copy/paste, MMS, Flash on iPhone, etc.

We'll see about those.

What I'm interested in what does the development community feel the SDK is missing, in need of, to make programming for the platform easier and more productive.

Answer 1

A non-Mac based development envionment.

Answer 2

Less sandboxing. It won't likely happen, but it would always be appreciated for an app to have slightly more power than they currently do (actual filesystem access, for example. even if it was read-only access, it would still allow for more interesting applications to exist).

EDIT: Also, access to the copy/paste API. But I hope that one is obvious to Apple.

Answer 3

• A more complete Interface Builder with support for custom palettes and all sorts of goodies like that.
• Better control over the keyboard.
• Better unit testing support. (Unit testing can be done, but only on the simulator, and it's very awkward to set up.)
• Push notifications. Please.
• A more accurate simulator, i.e. one with a more accurate set of frameworks.
• The ability to easily build views like the Mail compose window.
• For that matter, an in-application compose window.
• A better way for apps to share data locally than by invoking URLs.
• Access to the calendar, notes, mail (possibly read-only), and bookmarks (again, read-only) databases. Maybe even limited access to the iPod database—even just the ability to read song metadata and access and change the playing song would be helpful.
• Some sort of middle ground between UILabel and UIWebView that allows for formatted text without a huge hassle.
• More built-in toolbar icons.
• The return of the "glass" button style that was in the beta SDK.
• A few useful internal views, like UIProgressHUD, exposed.

And last but not least...

• A pony.

Answer 4

• Ability to send SMS messages without having to have launch the SMS client and have the user type the message.

• Access to the raw camera data so that things can be done without having to take a picture and wait for it to save (like you can do with Android)

• push notification so that you can launch tasks... would need to be user controllable.

• A camera that can focus (I know... have to wait for the next iPhone for that... if they decide to put it in...)

Answer 5

I'm surprised no one has mentioned garbage collection yet. Objective-C 2.0 on the Mac supports optional garbage collection. I don't really see any reason it wouldn't work just fine on the iPhone as well and it would eliminate much of the tedium of having to explicitly release objects all over the place.

Answer 6

Better multitasking is absolutely key at this point. Android's got it, Palm's WebOS has it - both, it seems, in largely unrestricted and well-implemented fashion. Possibilities:

• Push notifications with a good UI (message stack in addition to badging/sound/whatever - if they have to have an extra approval step so apps can't be obnoxious, so be it)
• Multiple full processes (not possible with current OS, I realize, but then I've never seen a good explanation why the iPhone doesn't support virtual memory)
• Smaller "background" versions of apps that can run in the background - no GUI and a significantly tighter memory constraint

Answer 7

A UIKit level drawing api.

Answer 8

What I'm hoping most for is to allow iPhones to talk to each other either via Bluetooth or some other means. Granted, they can talk via Bonjour if they are on the same Wi-Fi network, but that's just not convenient enough in 2009. If I'm out with a friend and want to play a multi-player game we first have to find a Starbucks or whatever the heck to get on the same Wi-Fi network. Also, think of the ridiculous amount of social apps you could have if iPhones could talk to each other without needing Wi-Fi. Exchange business cards, flirt with the cute girl over there, etc.

Form a PURE programmers perspective, make XCode as helpful of an IDE as Eclipse or IntelliJ are in the Java world. There's so much time I waste on stupid stuff that the IDE could have found for me as I typed it.

I also don't understand why I can't color buttons without having to use images.

Answer 9

• An easy Javascript bookmarklet installation method for Mobile Safari. (OpenRadar: 1, 2)
• UIWebView needs more of UIScrollView's properties and methods, such as contentOffset.
• More configurability on some of the built-in behaviors and views, e.g. the button text on UITableViewCell's "Delete" button, or the styles and text of UIAlertSheet/UIAlertView buttons. (Some of these can be done today with undocumented calls, but I'd rather not rely on those.)
• More flexibility from UINavigationController, such as the ability to push/pop views that selectively don't display the navigation bar but using the same animations and stack, or more customizability over the navigation bar button labels and behaviors.
• The ability to restrict interface orientation per UIViewController, not just accept/reject changes via shouldAutorotate. E.g. I want my main content view to be autorotatable, but I want my navigation hierarchy and settings screens to always display in portrait, even if the content view was rotated to landscape.
• libxml and its handy DOM XML parser instead of the SAX-based NSXMLParser.
• libcurl w/SSL, or more options and functionality for NSURLConnection.
• Ability to check whether a URL scheme is registered. This could be used for apps to detect whether other specific apps are installed, and enable functionality selectively, e.g. when Instapaper detects Tweetie is installed, it can offer a "Post with Tweetie" button. (Disclaimer: That was a plug. I make Instapaper.)

I'm sure I'll think of more, but overall, I'm very happy developing for the iPhone. I'm amazed at the quality and sophistication of the iPhone OS, the SDK, and the development tools given how incredibly young they all are.

Answer 10

We all know the feature set people want. Copy/Paste, MMS, Flash on iPhone, etc.

I would have thought those specific items were down the SO wish list (although it seems I'm wrong looking at the votes on this comment :-).

MMS is a pretty pointless app when you have eMail. Flash is not an OS issue - Flash could be delivered today.

I don't even want push notifications - they're just a patch, I want background apps. I also want fixes for all the broken APIs like Camera, video and landscape support. Support for CoreImage filters would be nice too but probably too much to wish for.

Answer 11

• A good mapping API. Let us access the Google Maps abstraction that the Maps application uses !
• More Interface Builder goodness
• Better simulator

Answer 12

My list:

• More full-featured IB support as the Mac has
• Inter-app Data transfer mechanism (could be C&P, but does not have to be)
• Greatly improved camera API with deeper level of control and more flexibility
• SDK access to bluetooth and more support for protocols
• Real ObjectiveC framework around the address book like the Mac has today.
• Warnings similar to the location warning when an app tries to access address book data.

I'm sure whatever they actually have prepared, there will be a few interesting twists.

Answer 13

• [[ABAddressBook sharedAddressBook] me] for being able to use the owner's Zip code, phone number, or whatever.
• Ability to download files to local storage and sync them back to iTunes or your hard drive

Answer 14

• Smart inbox. Incoming messages are routed to installed handlers based on type.
• Synchronisation framework that simplifies syncing with desktop & Mobile Me.
• Decent landscape support, without the multitude of bugs, especially for the camera picker. Better support for rotation and more control of it.
• Access to EXIF data on images from the picker, so we can tell their location
• Deeper access to the camera API, so that we are not rail-roaded into the standard photo taker / picker
• Push notifications that can launch an application. (In lieu of full multi-tasking, which I don't think we'll get and which could be problematic.)
• Better, more intuitive keyboard controls.
• API for inter-application messaging.
• Access to data from Calendar, iTunes, Mail, Notes and more (with user's permission)
• A more accurate simulator, with, for example, ways to limit bandwidth, and use the Mac's camera to actually take a photo.
• Phone-phone bluetooth for data exchange
• Access to more of the views used by iPhone apps, e.g. the progress HUD, email "blobbing" mechanism for email addresses, thumbnail scrollers, HUD brought up in Photos app, and more.

Answer 15

Get EXIF data from photos

Pull all photos at once

Pull all contacts at once

Control screen brightness

Access to music in iPod section

Read access to email and text messages

Access to Safari cookies (so maybe I could make some kind of keep-me-logged-in app.)

Answer 16

• fix table view in landscape mode
• new camera API with direct access to the camera
• distribution code signing automatically when uploading to the app store (instead of code signing in xcode)
• ability to request more memory so users don't have to reboot their phones to get rid of background apps