iOS 8 May Streamline Notification Center, Remove Game Center App, and More

[BaldiMac]

Notification Center NEEDS to show the CURRENT temperature!

I've seen this a couple times now. Notification Center does show the current temperature at times.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/18882439/

However, seems to me that once the current temperature is within a couple degrees of the high, it stops displaying the current temp. I could be wrong though, because I've only thought to check that a couple times. Could just be random.

 

[Scyanide]

I like the idea of Preview being in iOS and if this app communication system is put in place this could be the beginnings of a central filesystem structure for iOS and OS X users to share.

What I mean, is that apps could push/store their documents into Preview's document area and with Preview being the main viewing application we can access all our files as needed. Moving over to OS X, just open Preview and now you have access to all those files.

I'm liking the ideas of these iOS 8 rumors so far. As for Game Center, I kind of agree, we don't need it as an app as long as the game itself utilizes Game Center and still gives us all the leaderboard and achievement access.

 

[JGIGS]

I never use the All vs. Missed panes so eliminating them seems to make sense as I never saw a use for separating them.

One thing I'd like to see: give me the friggin current temperature in Notification Centre instead of the high and low for the day. Is that so hard??

You just summed up my biggest dislike of ios 7. One tab for everything is a much more simplified approach. I miss the stock and weather banners.

What apple did to notifications and how much better notifications are done on Android was one of the biggest reasons I jumped ship. For me that little pull down is really what I use to control my phone.

 

[rhett7660]

The company also is considering improving inter-app communication by creating a new API that allows apps to share data.

This is the line in the whole story that has me excited!

 

[irDigital0l]

For Game Center Apple needs to significantly make it better instead of just giving up.

It should be made into XBL or PSN and when the new Apple TV announces it should have an App Store and Game Center.

Apple would quickly gain momentum in the gaming industry.

 

[knightlie]

They highlight it because the first letter is automatically capitalized...

Nope, the shift keys colouring is now white on grey while all others keys are black. When active, shift takes on the normal back-on-white colouring of the rest of the keyboard. I know why they did it, but changing the behaviour from how it used to work is confusing - I've seen entire blog posts explaining "how the new shift key works", and I keep thinking I've messed up capitalisation because the shift keys colouring is "wrong". It's as if they hired the Windows 8 guy to look at it for them.

 

[KALLT]

Gosh, I hope so about the Notification Center stuff.

Notification Center has never made sense. For instance, if you clear a notification in the pulldown, the app still has a badge. Also, what's up with the Missing tab?

It's probably the most tacked on feature of iOS, and I'd love to see them fix it.

Agreed. I also don't like how the Notification Center is arranged. To me, it is much more useful to see notifications separately, not per app, and ordered by date. iOS already does this on the lock screen, but not on Notification Center. When you unlock the phone, you'll lose the list and have to start fishing out all of the separate notifications yourself.

I really like how BlackBerry 10 does this with the Hub. It's like a unified inbox for all of your notifications, and you can respond to each notification right from within the Hub without having to jump between apps. This is such a time-saver and you can see much better what is going on.

 

[flux73]

My "Today" pane shows me TODAY's weather, TODAY's traffic conditions to work (in the morning) and from work (in the afternoon), TODAY's schedule, TODAY's stock prices....

So what you really want is something OTHER than the Today pane. Because as it stands, that portion of the notification center does exactly what its supposed to do.

Now I do wish they'd get rid of the "Missed" tab. That is worthless.

Still don't understand how iOS 6 is better than iOS 7 - I mean look at this....

Mine doesn't display weather info at all. I can't seem to find anything in Settings that would change this.

 

[jrswizzle]

Mine doesn't display weather info at all. I can't seem to find anything in Settings that would change this.

http://ioshacker.com/how-to/show-current-weather-in-ios-7-notification-center

 

[BvizioN]

It would be nice for the USER to get rid of any app they want to.... nice to see stupid game center going away, that was useless. I would love to get rid of other buklshit apps like Passbook (which does NOTHING!)....

Like App Store and phone/message app? It's like, I want the eggs but kill that chicken I agree with you that some apps like newsstand or game centre users should be able to remove but any app?? Bad idea!

Oh, by the way, I use passbook quite frequently! Not saying it should be unremovable but when you say it does nothing, maybe you should add 'for me'

 

[petsounds]

Doubling down on secrecy, eh Tim?

I would love a revised Notification Center; it felt like the most rushed part of iOS 7. Just not well thought-out at all. There is way too much text for one thing, they just have text and more text, all the same color. An overview should only need a quick glance to get the important info. For instance, the weather should be mostly icons. And get rid of that giant calendar and pare down to the minimum what you present users, such as "[2PM] John Appleseed (@ Apple HQ)". It would also be great if Apple opened up Notification Center to third parties, letting them present their own views.

 

[flux73]

http://ioshacker.com/how-to/show-current-weather-in-ios-7-notification-center

Thanks. That was not intuitive at all. Notification Center definitely needs some work.

 

[Khedron]

If they're adding Preview does that mean the iPhone will finally have a ps/eps viewer?

 

[Todd B.]

I would actually like to see them use the Game Center app more, namely allow me to not show any games as app icons, and instead use Game Center to list and launch them in the same way Newsstand does now.

The problem with Game Center is that people don't want to have another place to keep track of a friends list and visit, they just want to share directly to their existing social network. The current system just seemed more like too much trouble for what it's worth; I'd love to see a simply API system that could pull in your existing friends and push out updates, etc. to your existing networks. I don't know how easy it is but I think it would be a lot more useful.

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A good way to make notification center much better is to actually notify us that there is something in notification center. I know several people who don't even know notification center is there.

It doesn't have to be a status bar icon, but maybe a flashing status bar. Who knows.

It's designed to be passive, though. The active notifications are badge icons and alerts.

 

[THOPMedia]

Although I'm sure the image is fake I'm the most excited seeing text edit on iOS. I think it's a perfect app for it. I use it all the time on my Mac and I wish I could use it on my iPhone all the time. Yes I use notes but it would be really nice to have just slightly more format ability.

 

[bjavor]

Another vote for being able to delete useless built in apps!

Not every one invests in stocks. And despite all the popularity of iOS games, not everyone wants to play games on their phones. Or if they do they may not be interested in sharing scores etc. As for the passbook, I realize that it may possibly be very useful to people in the US, but there is a whole world out there where it is pretty much useless. Please, let me delete it.

Another thing, semi on topic: icons. I know Apple never backtracks (at least immediately) on design changes just because users are complaining, but I always wondered about something and perhaps someone can enlighten me: I'm all on board for removing skeuomorphism (I truely hate that word) from inside the apps. The calendar does not need faux leather etc. But for heaven's sake what's wrong with having icons that are instantly recognizable and communicate at a glance what the app will do??? Currently the Photos and the Game Center icons look almost the same to me, they certainly do not communicate very well what app they belong too... It always takes me a while until I find the photos app... The notes one is borderline. I preferred the iOS 6 one though. And there are many others of course...

Sorry for the rant, but icons are actually a pet peeve of mine. Also on OS X. The first thing I new about OS X long before I've even seen a Mac was that it has beautiful, hires, detailed life-like icons. If you wanted to customize your Windows of Linux icons you'd go and look for OS X icons... But that seems to change lately.

The other reason I find this so said because many years ago I remember reading an official Apple icon design guideline document. That document, from Apple, stated that an icon should be instantly recognizable and preferably in several ways. Both by the image it shows, but also by its _colors_ AND its _shape_! So that people with different visual capabilities can have alternative ways of recognizing things. For instance they said that if you took the main system icons and colored them all black people would still able to know what icons they are looking at from their silouettes...

Of course all that was before they made the iTunes icon and virtually every other icon following after that into a big disc (I know CDs are not hip anymore, but I really liked how the musical note was sitting on top of it...) and removed the icon colors from the finder sidebar...

I guess I just cannot understand how they could have so forgotten about their own guidelines and the very sensible reasons outlined in them...

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

I get what you are saying...and I agree the "under the hood" changes lay the groundwork for future changes...but please tell my why the UI navigation has not fundamentally changed since the first iPhone. I mean either I'm crazy or I am still staring at screen after screen filled up with square tiles....which are becoming increasingly cumbersome to navigate on a device filled with apps ??

The look and feel has improved...somewhat with iOS 7. But I fail to see how they have improved the user flow of the iOS. If redrawing the stock icons using a "grid system" is revolutionary thinking then bite my a**. I'm a huge Apple fan but lately it seems as if the guys in Cupertino have a "I think it...therefore it's genius" complex.

I use to have the problem. Then I just started using Spotlight and never navigate away from my home screen.

Don't really see then need to reinvent the wheel. iOS is just like OSX in that you have a grid. of icons and folders. The only difference is the space between items.

I think most of the fundamental issues that people have (widgets) could be easily solved with expanding on the current implementation of Notification Center and Siri for 3rd party plugins.

 

[cjbski]

Stick Control Center where the Missed section is and use swipe up to get to multitasking. Double tapping the home button is archaic and not at all fluid.

I could not agree with this more. It's such a pain and takes forever. A simple swipe (people have done concepts like this before) would be far easier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=e0U2NQ_0snA

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A few things I want in iOS 8...

- Why can't we have a vibrate on/off toggle in Control Center? I hate digging for it in settings.

- "Clear All" for notifications

- "Quick reply" for texts

- Make an image wallpaper directly from Safari (rather than save image...go into Photos...set as wallpaper)

- Hide unwanted/stock applications

- More customization for Do Not Disturb (specific people rather than JUST people in the favorites list - i.e. if I'm sleeping I only want to be woken up by a girlfriend and no one else)

 

[dysamoria]

Software will always have bugs. It's impossible to create perfect flawless software.

Because this myth being believed by people allows software to be released buggy and never repaired.

 

[dysamoria]

The only thing i want to see in iOS 8 is an undoing of the iOS 7 GUI and bloat.

 

[QuarterSwede]

My request is that they seperate the media volume from system volume. I'm tired of jacking my volume up to hear texts or other notifications and turning it down to play media. It's become a pet peeve.

 

[Urban Joe]

....yeah but

Because they got it right with iOS 1.

Look at Mac OS 1 and OS X 10.9 - both have icons that default to the right hand side of the desktop and a menu bar across the top.

To address the problem you mentioned, Apple have given you folders. Each folder can now have multiple pages of apps. Everything you use most often can be arranged for quick access, and things you use less often can be filed away.

there are definitely positive things about the UI overall but...I'm not the only one who thinks rearranging apps into folders is way too time consuming and inconvenient. Again, huge Apple fan here ... but can somebody in Cupertino get their head out their a** or stop admiring their face in the mirror long enough come up with something new, better and more efficient? I don't mind the tiles so much but we need the option to have a couple of "dynamic home screens" to facilitate faster navigation / quick access to the information that's important to us. Some type of live tiles would be awesome to keep from having to open up certain apps. The notifications implementation isn't cutting it for me. Again, picture something like cover flow at the top scrolling through dynamic tiles and couple of rows of standard app tiles at the bottom...I would like to switch a toggle and be able to resort ALL my apps different ways...especially ranked by frequency of use...again to speed navigation to what I'm interested in.

Everybody is certainly entitled to their opinion....but I do represent a huge segment of people that would like a genuine UI refresh with some improved navigation options. It's gotten really boring and too often I'm realizing that the current incarnation of iOS is unnecessarily constricted. What is the HUGE objection to giving people the "option" to have a home screen that is more dynamic?

Of course if/when Apple comes out with anything similar to this it will be praised as "something only Apple could ever think of" and I will be immediately retroactively deemed a clairvoyant copycat. I've been with Apple a long time but I'm starting to get jaded with their antics.

 

[Tar Sniffer]

Simplifying Notification Center is a good step, but they should really just bring back the functionality of iOS 6. It worked perfectly and my usage was centered around it.

The removal of Game Centre is welcome too. I hope they plan to do the same in OS X.

I guess we've pretty much discovered all the main features of iOS 8 this past week. I just hope that the visual tweaks are exciting or their won't be any surprises at WWDC.

 

[wikiverse]

geeze....the Big Apple has really doubled down on the iOS UI. Frankly, I've grown tired of it. OK, that's an UNDERSTATEMENT. They really need to update the whole "tile board" UI / app navigation and focus more on user flow. I wouldn't even mind a different UI for iPhone vs. iPad. Things really haven't changed since the first iteration on the first iPhone. Is this rocket science....hell no. But somebody at Apple surely must think it is. These painfully small, baby-step-type incremental updates are getting pretty annoying.

I would like to see a couple of the screens (say #1 & possible #2) dedicated to provide more dynamic information with a new layout (thinking a combination of cover flow and existing tiles). Then have the app tiles on the subsequent pages. Would also like to have several options for organizing / navigating / managing apps. For example, have a toggle that reorganizes based on most frequently used apps / alphabetical / most recently updated ... etc.

Again...this is not rocket science but obviously getting things done at Apple is more political than Washington, DC. I wish they would "refocus" their attentions on the big picture and get over dawdling over the minutia.

You are asking for android. It has versions of most of those features already.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

Man, I don't get some of the people on this thread. Apple is 'trying' to cater to the 'millions' of people who use their iOS, and all some people can complain about is that there are too many Apple installed icons on their screen. Stocks, Weather, Passbook, etc. may not be useful to you, but Jane over here might find them 'very' useful. True, Apple could make them delete-able, and then add them to the AppStore, but 'maybe' they add core functionality that the system needs to run certain functions... Yah think? Sure, they could add the needed code provided by these apps directly into the system, but then you're going to get a more bloated system. Not good. Yes, maybe there are better stock/weather apps than the default ones, but will they integrate with the system as well? Who knows, but I doubt Apple wants to let iOS harmony suffer because of bad 3rd party coding. Just be happy that Apple maybe looking into adding a cross-app doc folder (my personal hope).

So to all the default app complainers, pull up your Big Girl Panties and just put all those nasty app icons into a single folder. Multi-icons made into one icon. There, don't you feel better now? I know I do. ;-)

But if you 'still' need something to complain about, then keep going on about no quick SMS responses. I'm right there with you on that point!

/rant