Apple?s loose ends: How iOS 6 must make amends at WWDC

Next week is a big week in the mobile space. Google will kick off its annual I/O developer conference, but not before Apple?s had its chance to wow the world with a show of its own: WWDC.

WWDC 2012 kicks off on Monday, with most believing that Apple will take the chance to show iOS 6 off to its developer collective. We?ve already been through what we want Apple to unveil, but there are a few extra loose ends, that have either been promised or hinted at, that Apple really needs to address. These are as follows?

Siri SDK

Siri says some odd things sometimes. Ask it to take down a note, for instance, and it won?t tell you that it can?t; it?ll tell you that it can?t ?yet?.?Same goes for making contacts, taking photos an downloading apps.

Without doubt, Apple?s going to expand on Siri?-?what?s left up in the air is when?and to what extent?Apple?s going to let Siri into the hands of developers. Having apps that can be controlled by voice will, in some cases, be a real revolution.

iOS widget SDK

Apple?s never laid out plans to include widgets in the SDK, but hacks have proven that it?s possible to put non-Apple messages in the Notification Centre. In May last year, hackers managed to infiltrate the drop-down menu and replace a widget with the simple message ?Hello World?.

It was a proof of possibility exercise, rather than an attempt to build anything useful, but it says there?s more possibility there than initially meets the eye ? all Apple needs to do is include that extended functionality in the iOS SDK. That way, devs will be able to make proper Notification Centre widgets, similar to those in Android.

Siri location services in the UK

We?ve been over this before, but Apple simply has to unleash Siri?s location-based services in the UK and elsewhere. Currently it?s tied in with Yelp! in the US, but Tim Cook?s recent musings that Apple is ?doubling-down? on Siri suggest that the company?s going to have something new to announce at WWDC.

It needs to: Apple?s Siri FAQ says that ?Maps and local search support will be available in additional countries in 2012.? Perhaps this?ll tie in with Apple?s new proprietary maps service?

Facebook integration

Twitter made the cut in iOS 5, bringing the option to tweet pictures and messages from anywhere in the OS. This came as a result of a close relationship between the micro-blogging site and Apple during a time that the latter?s relationship with Facebook was very strained.

That?s not the case now. Tim Cook?s been full of praise for Facebook recently, and at the D10 conference last month he teased us with this:

?Anyone that has an iPhone or iPad, we want them to have the best experience with Facebook on those platforms. So stay tuned.?

Facebook not being involved while Twitter is smacks of half a job to us. iOS 6 has to get this fixed.

Do Not Disturb

Of all the new features that have filtered into the Developer Preview of Mac OS X Mountain Lion, the most intriguing is Do Not Disturb. Most of Mountain Lion?s tweaks are things borrowed from iOS, but DND is an evolution that needs to make it?s way back.

Head to the Notification Centre on a Mountain Lion-enabled Mac, and you?ll be able to turn on the Do Not Disturb mode, which halts all notifications and alerts, for if you?re watching a movie or playing a game.

If iOS 6 doesn?t have that feature, we?ll eat our collective hats.

Offline Reading List

Similarly, the version of Safari in OS X now has a place to store all the pages you?ve added to your Reading List. On iOS, you can transform the page you?re on into a Reader page, with the text and images stripped back to their most basic form, but there?s no way to save these anywhere to access later and offline.

It?s not too much of a stretch to think that Apple will bring this across in iOS 6, but it?s an interesting one, because it would arguably suck a lot of business away from apps like Pocket.

More on iOS 6:

- iOS 6 and Siri: How Apple can fix the voice assistant
- Six things we want to see in iOS 6
- The features iOS should steal from Android
- Six ways Mountain Lion puts an iPhone in your Mac
- Will you miss Google Maps?

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Any more loose ends that are crying out for a fix at WWDC next week? Let us know your thoughts below?

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