The iPad is great, and iOS is, well, neat. However, there are a few features from Android, that I would love to see on the iPad. Chief among these is widgets.
On my Android phone, I have widgets telling me how much power is left on my phone, the number of days until my wedding, and a photo of my fiancée, to mention a few. Others include widgets to turn on and off various services on the phone, set the sound profile, and turn airplane mode on or off:
On my iPad, the only things that could fall under the header of widgets, are the little numbers on apps like Things, Mail and Newsrack, telling me how many outstanding tasks, and unread emails and blog posts I have:
So having established that I want widgets, what do I want them to do? For one, I’d love to have a widget for toggling airplane mode, a countdown to my wedding day and one to toggle sound and rotation lock.
I’m sure there are other things you guys would want to see; feel free to use the comment field to share them!
Tag: feature
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My number one wanted feature on Android
Lately, I have been writing quite a bit about features I’d like to see on my iPad. I do also have an Android phone (my second one, as a matter of fact), and, while it usually does most of what I want, there is one feature which is not built into it – screenshots.
On my iPad, and apparently also on the iPhone, you simply press the home and power buttons, and hey presto, you’ve got a screenshot. On Android phones, you have to either root the phone, or install the SDK, both of which are unsatisfactory solutions to me.
Now, apparently, this will come in Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread), but frankly, it should have been a feature since day one. -
My number one wanted feature on the iPad
As should be obvious by now, I love my iPad, and bring it with me most everywhere I go. I use it for work and play, planning and doodling in equal amounts. It has more or less supplanted my netbook as my default unit for web browsing, emailand many other things.
Along with my android phone, I’ve got internet access most anywhere I go, and am very happy about that fact, too. There is one feature from my android phone that I’d like to see however, which is only currently available on iOS devices when they’ve been jailbroken; a unified file management system.
On any and all android devices, you can access the file system, and any files on it, directly from the unit, allowing you to modify them at will, and opening them in other programs.
Sure, there are apps that sort of do what I want, but they don’t do it particularly well, nor particularly elegantly. moreover, i think it’s something that should be handled, not by some app, but natively, in the OS.
Like my wishes for what used to be the rotation lock button, I understand, and to some extent accept that this might not be forthcoming for some time, though I honestly think it would be a mistake on Apple’s part not to implement it soon.