With WWDC imminent, here are my top wishes this year.

See also my macOS 10.14 wishlist.

Something Unexpected

I want to be wowed!

Dark Mode

I mostly use my iPhone in the dark and even with the lowest brightness setting, it’s still too bright. Dark mode should also result in better battery life on iPhone X because of its OLED screen.

Nonintrusive volume indicator

I’m sure I’m not the only one fed up with the volume indicator obscuring the video you’re watching. The centered volume HUD works on macOS as it only takes up a tiny part of the screen. Bringing it to iOS was a huge mistake. Time to fix that.

Improved A.I.

Siri is a joke compared to what Google is doing and the Photos app is way behind Google Photos on smartness.

Revamped Notifications

Notifications have just gotten worse with each recent iOS release.

Some ideas:

Notification grouping.

I don’t need 134 unique notifications from my WhatsApp group.

I don’t need 134 unique notifications from my WhatsApp group. Snooze a notification to a time or place.

I’m not always able to handle notifications right away.

I’m not always able to handle notifications right away. Richer notifications.

I should not have to context switch to respond to something. iOS kinda already has rich notifications, but it’s very limited and few apps take advantage of it. Ideally, notifications should be fully dynamic widgets. Let’s say you get a notification for a new message in a group chat. A simplified view of the whole chat should be bundled right in the notification. You can then read up on the last discussion before replying.

I should not have to context switch to respond to something. iOS kinda already has rich notifications, but it’s very limited and few apps take advantage of it. Ideally, notifications should be fully dynamic widgets. Let’s say you get a notification for a new message in a group chat. A simplified view of the whole chat should be bundled right in the notification. You can then read up on the last discussion before replying. Use Face ID to only show the contents of notifications if you (and only you?) are looking at the phone, even when it’s unlocked.

Could prevent some embarrassing moments.

Default Apps

The ability to change default apps or some kind of intent system. We all know Google Maps is better. And I prefer Google Inbox over Mail.

RAW Image Support in the Camera and Photos app

One of the main selling points of the iPhone is the camera. Compressed photos are not enough! Some of us want the highest quality possible.

Reinvented Home Screen

We’ve had the static grid of app icons for 10 years now. It’s been great, but it’s time for something new and more dynamic. I imagine something of a mix between widgets and apps.

Supercharge the Photos App

The Photos app is actually pretty good, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. The face detection is so-so. The photos chosen for the Memories feature feel arbitrary. Many useful adjustments are missing, like white balance, noise reduction, and vignette. I wish you could copy-paste adjustments from one photo to another. iCloud Photo Library is slow to sync and it’s slow to download cloud-only photos. My iPhone often saves videos with the incorrect orientation, so I wish you could rotate videos too.

What I want to see added/implemented

Orientation lock that doesn’t apply when viewing videos and photos.

Multiple timers.

FaceTime screen sharing.

Full-resolution photo sharing with family from the Photos app.

Auto-running Safari extensions, not just user-initiated actions and ad-blocking.

Ability to rename Bluetooth devices.

Night Exposure mode in the Camera app that takes multiple exposures, stitches them together and does noise reduction.

Third-party Control Center controls.

Shared folders in the Notes app.

Dynamic Weather app icon.

Reliable FaceTime with good quality. Even on fast wifi the quality is subpar and it loses connection all the time.

Document scanning in the Camera app. It should just automatically offer to scan if it detects a document. Android P just announced this feature. The existing document scanning in the Notes app is very useful but takes too many steps.

Other suggestions