iOS 5: What we didn't get

With Apple's launch of iOS 5 this week, we'll soon be getting stuck into a smorgasbord of new features for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. A new notifications system and lock-screen shortcuts are just a couple of our favourite features, but there are many more, so check out our iOS 5 complete guide for the whole shebang.

Just as there's always room for dessert, though, there's always room for improvement, especially since we missed out on some of our most-wanted iOS 5 features. We're also hungry for some of the great suggestions from the readers who commented on that story, so check it out. 

Here are the areas we think Apple should focus on for iOS 6, and beyond.

Game Center

Game Center received some improvements in iOS 5 that could drag it out of the doldrums. In his presentation, Steve Jobs bragged that, in nine months, Game Center has acquired 9 million users, compared to the 30 million that Xbox Live has garnered in eight years. 

That's rather disingenuous, though. Game Center is on millions of iPhones and iPod touches, and it only takes a second to sign in and then ditch it. With Xbox Live, Microsoft can brag about dedicated gamers who've invested in an Xbox and who spend an insane numbers of hours on it.

In a bid to make Game Center more than a momentary distraction, iOS 5 improves your ability to find friends to play with. You'll be able to see the friends of the people you're already playing with, as well as send and receive friend recommendations. 

It all sounds like a good start, but we'd still like to be able to look up friends en masse by connecting with our address book, Facebook and Twitter accounts. 

Syncing with multiple computers

We're thrilled that iOS 5 will bring wireless syncing and software updates, so you won't have to connect to your computer with a USB cable to grab your music and other data. Instead, you just have to be on the same Wi-Fi network, as well as plugged in and charging.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like iOS 5 will allow syncing to multiple computers. Currently, it's a logistical nightmare to share most kinds of files on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad between different desktops, and this doesn't look set to change. To take Steve Jobs' words about iOS 5 slightly out of context, it's "a real hassle and very frustrating to keep all your information and content up-to-date across all your devices". Indeed Steve. Indeed.

You can already sync plenty of stuff wirelessly from the cloud, like your contacts and calendars from Google, for example. But, when it comes to podcasts, photos and updates, it's currently iTunes or no tunes.

Apple's new iCloud system should help, since it will sync even more of your stuff to the cloud. Music, photos and back-up data will all go into the great beyond, ready to sync up at will. Sadly, it looks like we won't get iCloud in the UK until well after our American cousins, who'll be getting it in the autumn.

iMount

It's possible to use an iPod touch as an external drive, but not your iPhone or iPad. Why? We don't know -- maybe you can tell us in the comments section below.

We'd love to be able to use our devices as straight-up hard drives, and take advantage of the gigabytes that we paid for. It's clearly possible, and we resent having to cram USB sticks in our tech-laden breeches when we're already carting around our iStuff.

Quick controls

Saving battery life on most smart phones is a fine art. Having easy access to Wi-Fi and brightness shortcuts would make massaging these settings much quicker than having to trawl through the settings menus. 

The multitasking dock, which currently contains shortcuts to open apps, the screen-lock function and iPod controls, could be a smashing place for Wi-Fi and brightness controls, as well as, dare we add, GPS and Bluetooth shortcuts.

Flash in the browser

We know Flash in the browser is as likely as Satan skating to work, but we still want it. We don't care that Flash is the source of most crashes on Macs, or that it can suck battery life.

The lack of Flash support is the main thing that makes Android tablets better for surfing the Web, despite the iPad's lightning-fast browser. With Android, you can also turn Flash off or set Flash to run on command, rather than by default.

We'll harp on about this issue until the day that every website has switched to HTML5, or we finally get what we want.

One more thing...

We've given up on getting an FM radio, and we can't be bothered with network printing. If Game Center doesn't pick up soon, that will end up on our indifference list, too.

We'd like to hear what you want from iOS, so let us know in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.