[akermi]

Craig Federighi took the stage at WWDC on Monday to announce iOS 8, the next major version of Apple’s mobile operating system. To much surprise, there were quite a few improvements made this time around with features like Interactive Notifications and 3rd party keyboard support. I’ve spent the week running iOS 8 full-time, and there are quite a few nice new features. However, there’s always more room for improvement. Some of the items on this “wish list” are more likely to happen than others, but without further ado, here are 5 improvements I’m hoping to see before iOS 8 drops in the fall, or at least in future software updates.


1. Dark Mode

Before the release of the iOS 8 beta, I was rocking a Jailbroken iPhone on iOS 7.0.6. One of my favorite tweaks (screenshots above) was Eclipse, which is a system-wide night mode for iOS. Since the inception of iOS 7, I wasn’t a huge fan of the bright white interface, and still feel the same way to this day. During its unveiling of Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Apple introduced a Dark Mode, which got me excited and hoping we’d see the same for iOS. Unfortunately, I was let down. I’d love to see this implemented before iOS 8 drops in the fall.


2. Lock Screen Widgets

As is evident from the screenshots above, the lock screen hasn’t ever undergone any major improvements in terms of functionality. We’ve seen the introduction of the Camera grabber as well as access to Notification Center and Control Center, but that’s about it. With iOS 8, Apple finally brought widgets to the Today view in Notification Center. I believe many would find it very useful to have widgets directly on the lock screen as well. Although it’s highly unlikely, I’d love to see Apple allow the same widgets from Notification Center to be displayed on the lock screen.


3. Access To Photos within Interactive Notifications

With iOS 8 we finally got quick reply for Messages built-in to the OS in the form of Interactive Notifications. At this point in time, you have the option to send either text or a quick audio recording via the Interactive Notifications, but there’s no possible way to attach an image. Jailbreak tweaks such as BiteSMS and Auki have this functionality, and it has proven very useful. It’d also be a nice addition for use with 3rd party apps such as Facebook, when you may want to attach an image to a comment. This is a minor enhancement that we may likely see before iOS 8 is released to the public.


4. Better Siri/ Shazam Integration

[Just_Me_D]

Although many of us watched the WWDC presentation, thanks for the review...

[John Yester]

Good thoughts... But normally what ever they show or that is in the iOS 8 release notes that is pretty much it... Now the true contest is which of the released features actually make it to the full release.... There is always a chance that something will change or get pulled.

[BreakingKayfabe]

I'm all for choice with dark mode. However, I don't like the dark mode in those concept pictures. The font on those is almost unreadable.

[agarwal.apar]

+1 for night mode. It will help me in saving the juice for my Apple!


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