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iOS 4 Missing The Most Basic Feature?

gceo

gceo

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 13, 2007
655
1
San Diego, CA
Well, I just got up and running on GM 4.0. I have to say that after all the nice updates and features, one of the most basic (and often most asked for) is missing.

What I really need is a 'locked' home screen that allows me to show information from my Calendar, etc. I can't tell you how many birthdays, and other important dates I've missed by not knowing about them, and the alternative is to check the Calendar every single day, but this gets redundant and is an extra task that doesn't need to happen is iOS had a proper Home screen.

Seriously... I need to email Steve about this.
 
gceo said:
Well, I just got up and running on GM 4.0. I have to say that after all the nice updates and features, one of the most basic (and often most asked for) is missing.

What I really need is a 'locked' home screen that allows me to show information from my Calendar, etc. I can't tell you how many birthdays, and other important dates I've missed by not knowing about them, and the alternative is to check the Calendar every single day, but this gets redundant and is an extra task that doesn't need to happen is iOS had a proper Home screen.

Seriously... I need to email Steve about this.
Click to expand...
This is one of many reasons I jailbreak. There's no excuse for Apple to not add this type of functionality to the OS. If they want to stop jailbreaking, they should give people features they want. The need to add a quick reply feature for SMS too but that's something else I get by jailbreaking.
 
We shouldn't have to jailbreak to have this. I agree, an informative homepage/lock screen is a BASIC feature. Why is it every other smartphone manufacturer gets this except Apple? FAIL
 
danb77 said:
Jailbreak and add Lock Info. It does precisely this, and excellently.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know.

diabolic said:
All my important dates and appointments pop up with a notification as far in advance as I set them to in my calendar.
Click to expand...

I set all mine up years ago, and I have hundreds of them.... shoots.

The other big problem is that I use my phone... A LOT. So many times I'll see a notification, but before I can read it, the phone rings, or a text comes in, and the notification is gone. Bummer.
 
What's missing? A better notification system. A reworked UI, the current UI is too constraining, so much so the task manager that pops up is kind of kludgy
Some may say widgets, using an android phone, I'd have to say that the use of widgets is a big plus .
 
gceo said:
I can't tell you how many birthdays, and other important dates I've missed by not knowing about them, and the alternative is to check the Calendar every single day...
Click to expand...

Ok, there are 2 issues here.

1) You're right, the iPhone home screen and notification system need a lot of help. Apple should totally fix it the way you want it to be fixed.

and

2) I can't believe you can't be bothered to look at your calendar every day. I would lose my job if I didn't check and see what I was doing every day. And no, my work calendar isn't even on my phone so changing the iPhone wouldn't affect that one way or the other. It involves opening Outlook and looking at the darned thing. But I do it every day.

And what about my iPhone calendar? Well, I've never managed to miss a dentist appointment, pick up my daughter at the wrong time, or forget the dinner at my mom's house. It's easy because I look at my calendar.

Before the iPhone I used to carry around a big physical notebook in my pocket. (With a pen!) The iPhone has made this a million times easier and it's STILL too hard for you? It needs to be a million-and-1 times easier for you to be bothered to use it?

I'm sorry, I guess I'm ranting. I just don't understand this at all.
 
Alerts

I just set an alert on anything important I need to remember. I'm not sure what the problem is with that? Plus using mobileMe in conjunction, I get the same alert on my work computer in Outlook. The only time I forget something is when I don't put it on my iPhone.
 
Hovey said:
I just set an alert on anything important I need to remember. I'm not sure what the problem is with that? Plus using mobileMe in conjunction, I get the same alert on my work computer in Outlook. The only time I forget something is when I don't put it on my iPhone.
Click to expand...

So your telling me I have to sign up for a $99/year service, and change tons and tons of events to have an alert associated with them? This is obviously an oversight on Apple's part.

This is the one big feature that makes me jealous of Android.

And again, different strokes for different folks... we all use our phones differently. What might be a great feature to me, might be unimportant to others. I understand that, and I'm asking for something really basic.
 
gceo said:
So your telling me I have to sign up for a $99/year service, and change tons and tons of events to have an alert associated with them? This is obviously an oversight on Apple's part.

This is the one big feature that makes me jealous of Android.

And again, different strokes for different folks... we all use our phones differently. What might be a great feature to me, might be unimportant to others. I understand that, and I'm asking for something really basic.
Click to expand...

No you don't have to pay $99 a year. Just set the alert on your phone. If you want to, sync it to your desktop/laptop calendar for free with your sync cable. It's not hard at all.
 
Hovey said:
I just set an alert on anything important I need to remember. I'm not sure what the problem is with that? Plus using mobileMe in conjunction, I get the same alert on my work computer in Outlook. The only time I forget something is when I don't put it on my iPhone.
Click to expand...

Yes, there is no setting for a reminder (snooze) and they often get lost by answering phone calls etc... The alert system is weak at best.
 
I believe this was a toss-up for Apple, whereas it wants to cater to the mass audience, and at the same time still provide enough functionality for the original target audience of the smartphones: business professionals.

Obviously the general population won out on this one, and it makes sense not to swarm the home screen to the point where you can't see the background image.

So I guess the only solution really is to jailbreak, and break out of the cradle.
 
psywzrd said:
This is one of many reasons I jailbreak. There's no excuse for Apple to not add this type of functionality to the OS. If they want to stop jailbreaking, they should give people features they want. The need to add a quick reply feature for SMS too but that's something else I get by jailbreaking.
Click to expand...

I agree. This is why I also hacked the Wii.
 
I agree, the notification system is highly inadequate right now, needs to be some way to track multiple notifications, not just the last that came up.
 
OP, I just went to birthdayalarm.com an year or so ago, and manually added the birthday's anniversaries and important days and even holidays of everyone I know.

Best decision I made. It sends me an email a week or so before the day basically giving me a heads up to buy a present or whatever. And it sends me another email at 11:30 pm the night before, so I remember to call the person the next day.

Also OP, Email Steve Jobs.

Sjobs@apple.com

You have a higher chance of getting these things implemented than you do by posting them here. :D
 
gceo said:
I can't tell you how many birthdays, and other important dates I've missed by not knowing about them, and the alternative is to check the Calendar every single day
Click to expand...

I guess the idea of a calendar alert is just over your head. Drop the pipe.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

MrCheeto said:
gceo said:
I can't tell you how many birthdays, and other important dates I've missed by not knowing about them, and the alternative is to check the Calendar every single day
Click to expand...

I guess the idea of a calendar alert is just over your head. Drop the pipe.
Click to expand...

Or the alert system is a big fail!
 
Really?! A screaming alarm and a big alert window on your lock screen to warn you of an upcoming event is fail?!

Just how much ARE you smoking, then?!
 
I don't know if it qualifies as the most basic feature, but I like the idea and would love to have it on my iphone.
 
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