94 MACWORLD MARCH 2020
FEATURE iOS 14 WISH LISTthen. We can now long-press on app icons
to get context menus, but the home
screen is still a big grid of icons that you
can’t even freely move around, only
reorder.
The grid of icons probably won’t go
away, and that’s not necessarily a bad
thing. But there are plenty of ways to
change things without completely
upending the paradigm.
I’d love Apple to introduce a dynamic
icon API so that, for example, a weather
app could change its icon to match the
forecast, or an email icon could show how
many unread messages you have. At the
very least, Apple should let developers
define separate app icons for Light and
Dark mode.
If you drag down on the home screen,
you enter Spotlight search. Before you
begin searching, Siri suggests a row of
app icons based on your common use at
the current time of day and location.
Maybe this should (optionally) reside on
our home screens, now that iPhones are
so much taller?
And even if Apple is not going to let us
hide apps in an app drawer à la Android, it
can at least let us position app icons and
folders wherever we want. Currently, you
can reorder them, but they always fill the
screen from the upper left—there’s no way
to leave a blank space.- NOTIFICATIONS NEED AN
OVERHAUL
Notifications have improved in iOS, but
they’re still a bit of a mess. When you dig
into the Settings app to change how apps
notify you, you’re bombarded with options.
Where do you get alerts? What kind of
banner style? Do you want sounds?
Previews? How about the little red dot on
app icons?
The average user doesn’t ever go
here, and suffers default settings for all
their apps. Those who do change things
have too many options to choose from,
and they’re the wrong kind of options. I’d
like to see Apple reduce the choices for
the many ways in which notifications are
I’d love Apple
to introduce a
dynamic icon
API so that,
for example, a
weather app
could change
its icon to
match the
forecast.