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There ain't no App for that...

Jon-Luke

Jon-Luke

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 22, 2009
278
0
Cape Town
According to the marketing hype for the iPhone there is supposedly an app for everything... But here are two features that I wish there were apps for that I can't find anywhere.

1. - A short cut to turn on and off my blue tooth or 3G - sometimes I need these features sometimes I don't. Bluetooth and 3G are known battery hogs and one of my bluetooth devices wont see my iphone unless I restart the Bluetooth (Very irritating when you have to go through so many stages in the menu system to get there.

2. Sleep mode for notifications - Some of us don't want to be buzzed and beeped all night long as tweets happen or as emails are received, but we don't want to be in total silence in case there is an emergency phone call. A time of day setting for push notifications would be great or at least a profile setting for night time where only the alarm and phone works when you are sleeping would be good.

Maybe someone out there will be inspired to make the apps... Or maybe someone out there knows a mystery app that will solve the problem.

Or feel free to post your ideas for apps that just don't exist (yet...)
biggrin.gif
 
Jon-Luke said:
According to the marketing hype for the iPhone there is supposedly an app for everything... But here are two features that I wish there were apps for that I can't find anywhere.

1. - A short cut to turn on and off my blue tooth or 3G - sometimes I need these features sometimes I don't. Bluetooth and 3G are known battery hogs and one of my bluetooth devices wont see my iphone unless I restart the Bluetooth (Very irritating when you have to go through so many stages in the menu system to get there.

2. Sleep mode for notifications - Some of us don't want to be buzzed and beeped all night long as tweets happen or as emails are received, but we don't want to be in total silence in case there is an emergency phone call. A time of day setting for push notifications would be great or at least a profile setting for night time where only the alarm and phone works when you are sleeping would be good.

Maybe someone out there will be inspired to make the apps... Or maybe someone out there knows a mystery app that will solve the problem.

Or feel free to post your ideas for apps that just don't exist (yet...) Image
Click to expand...

Rather than apps, I wish these were seamelessly integrated into the iOS. Both are great suggestions, in my opinion.
 
Just because the operating system doesn't do them doesn't mean that apps cannot be created to achieve the same results - look at all the alarm clock apps out there surely there should be a way of controlling these things too with 3rd party apps rather than lamenting the short comings of the operating system.

Also Apple tends to incorporate apps that work well into the operating system if you consider some of the stuff they have adopted over the years from jail broken phones and things like book readers etc...
 
Jon-Luke said:
Just because the operating system doesn't do them doesn't mean that apps cannot be created to achieve the same results - look at all the alarm clock apps out there surely there should be a way of controlling these things too with 3rd party apps rather than lamenting the short comings of the operating system.

Also Apple tends to incorporate apps that work well into the operating system if you consider some of the stuff they have adopted over the years from jail broken phones and things like book readers etc...
Click to expand...

Apple will allow neither of these apps. They need to change things in the system and Apple doesn't let apps do that.
 
Jon-Luke said:
Just because the operating system doesn't do them doesn't mean that apps cannot be created to achieve the same results - look at all the alarm clock apps out there surely there should be a way of controlling these things too with 3rd party apps rather than lamenting the short comings of the operating system.

Also Apple tends to incorporate apps that work well into the operating system if you consider some of the stuff they have adopted over the years from jail broken phones and things like book readers etc...
Click to expand...

I personally don't think Apple would approve an app that controls notifications in the manner you've detailed or one that toggles Bluetooth or 3G on/off. Especially if they won't allow access to something as small as the use of the volume button as a camera trigger to 3rd party app developers.
 
1 - There is not an "official" app for it because Apple does not allow 3rd party apps to modify blue tooth settings. There are jailbreak apps that will do that. But I agree I wish that was easier to get to.

2 - Only thing that makes noise on my phone are SMS and phone calls. My phone would ding all day long with emails and tweets but profiles would be nice.
 
I want an app that opens a little popup window every few hours to remind me of how much better a person I am than everyone else for using an apple product. :apple:
 
r2shyyou said:
I personally don't think Apple would approve an app that controls notifications in the manner you've detailed or one that toggles Bluetooth or 3G on/off. Especially if they won't allow access to something as small as the use of the volume button as a camera trigger to 3rd party app developers.
Click to expand...

You may have an excellent point here! If any app developers have tried to do these things and have been rejected I think we would like to know... We all want our phones to be better and if Apple is blocking this even though it may be possible then maybe we can all try to convince apple otherwise - we are supposed to be the customers are we not, shouldn't we have some say in what we want...

(And yes I do understand that Apple likes to slowly roll out new developments and appear that they have reinvented the wheel - my Sony Ericsson K800i had video calling long before the 1st iPhone was invented and it was only really implemented properly on the iPhone 4) But lets note that Apple did let the skype app use the front facing camera and did not limit its use to facetime only!

----------
isoft7 said:
I want an app that opens a little popup window every few hours to remind me of how much better a person I am than everyone else for using an apple product. :apple:
Click to expand...

I think there are automatic sms apps that will do that for you - or you could always set your self reminders or ical events... Have fun:cool:
 
A bluetooth I/O app was offered briefly around the time the 3G was released but pulled by Apple. Like others said, Apple restricts apps that control the OS.
 
I would like both of these features. I normally have my phone on silent (vibrate=0) at night because if there is an emergency anyone who I care about has my home number, but when I work away from home I have to have the sounds on.

Bluetooth is a pain too as I turn it off to save battery but always need to have it on while I'm driving and I forget about 99% of the time. A one click operation would be great and some sort of geofence automatic operation would be awesome :) .

Apple would need to develop APIs for these functions and/or make them available to developers - neither of which seems very likely.
 
isoft7 said:
I want an app that opens a little popup window every few hours to remind me of how much better a person I am than everyone else for using an apple product. :apple:
Click to expand...


I want an app that opens a little popup window every few hours to remind me to punch you in your smug face.. :eek:
 
1. Settings.app

2. Not everything you want but try Boxcar, it has sleep mode for Facebook, Mail, Twitter etc... Or just turn off your phone. Or Airplane mode.
 
steveza said:
I would like both of these features. I normally have my phone on silent (vibrate=0) at night because if there is an emergency anyone who I care about has my home number, but when I work away from home I have to have the sounds on.
Click to expand...

Turning off cellular data and wifi is my workaround for this. I miss the ringer profiles on my Blackberry (phone only!) but by turning off cell data and wifi at night the only thing that still functions is the phone.
 
musika said:
1. Settings.app

2. Not everything you want but try Boxcar, it has sleep mode for Facebook, Mail, Twitter etc... Or just turn off your phone. Or Airplane mode.
Click to expand...
I think you may have missed the point somewhat :)
 
Okay ... I think when they said "there's an app for everything", they didn't literally mean there is one for everything. Obviously there isn't. But, you get the point.
 
I think what op is complaining about is no brainer and it's both suprising and stupid for apple to not have feature to deal w/ this natively in os.

I have been pointing this out ad nauseum. How do you not have separate volume controller for ringer vs other alerts????
 
It would hinder the UI & therefore the user experience of enjoying the screen with the nice clean simplistic look. I don't really mind going into the settings to turn off BT. It's not like it's that buried in the software.
 
monkeylui said:
It would hinder the UI & therefore the user experience of enjoying the screen with the nice clean simplistic look. I don't really mind going into the settings to turn off BT. It's not like it's that buried in the software.
Click to expand...
5 screen touches from the home screen is a bit much. It would be better if it was just under the Airplane mode switch.
 
Jon-Luke said:
... Bluetooth and 3G are known battery hogs...
Click to expand...

I don't find that to be the case with my 4s. My bluetooth is on always and the only time it's connected is when I'm in my car and it's connected to SYNC. At work I don't get the greatest signal and my battery will stay at 100% for 3 or 4 hours. I haven't used my phone a lot in the last day, only 3 1/2 hours of usage, but 1 day and 14 hours of standby. My battery is presently sitting at 38%. If my always-on bluetooth was such a battery hog, I wouldn't expect my battery to last as long as it is.
 
Jon-Luke said:
Just because the operating system doesn't do them doesn't mean that apps cannot be created to achieve the same results - look at all the alarm clock apps out there surely there should be a way of controlling these things too with 3rd party apps rather than lamenting the short comings of the operating system.

Also Apple tends to incorporate apps that work well into the operating system if you consider some of the stuff they have adopted over the years from jail broken phones and things like book readers etc...
Click to expand...

This is the reason for the term "Jailbreaking your phone". The apps are locked into a jail from Apple, and they cannot communicate (For the most part) with the operating system and make changes. They have very little options outside the normal application. People then created ways to jailbreak the iPhone (Which is just a fancy term for getting root access) and can then alter the permissions of applications, allowing them to communicate with the operating system.

The reason Apple doesn't allow this in my opinion is because of their simplistic design. They want everything to be very, very simple. If they opened the doors then the phones could then be pretty different, allowing each developer to do as they see fit. Thus making the iOS experience kind of like that of Android, the base line OS is there, but it's covered up by skins and making the experience not as great (In Apple's opinion).

These are just my thoughts though, I'm positive other people feel completely opposite
 
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