Apple iPhone iOS 9 bugs, discrepancies and desired features

Note: I have updated this post for the last time. I am currently using iOS 10.3.3 and will not update this any more with iOS 11. I'm surprised and disappointed that many of these problems have persisted since iOS 5. Nobody seems to care about my "desired features."

I switched to an Apple iPhone when the 4S was the first iPhone available from Verizon Wireless. I have now replaced the iPhone 4S with an iPhone 6. I have noted some bugs in the phone, some discrepancies in the user interface and I have some desired features.

The iPhone 4S came with iOS 5. My current iPhone 6 is running iOS 9.3.5. After I publish this post, I will upgrade to iOS 10 and retest all the bugs and discrepancies and look for the desired features and update this post if there are changes. Some of these may be fixed already as some of them are hard to test with iOS 9. Update: I have now installed iOS 10.3.3 and will be checking each bug, discrepancy and desired features for improvements.

Many of these bugs and discrepancies go back to iOS 5. I don't understand why they don't get fixed. I can't be the only one out of millions of users who has noticed these problems.

I'm only discussing applications and the keyboard provided by Apple as part of iOS.

Phone and Contacts (including Voice Mail)
When a contact is marked as "Blocked" and you add a phone number to that contact, the added phone number will not be blocked. You must unblock and block the contact again to begin blocking the added phone number. iOS 10.3.3: Still a bug.

The "1" digit on the phone keypad is tricky. I've had cases where I needed to dial the "1" but was unable to do so. Many times, the screen just flashes. When I have a conference call and the authorization code includes a "1", I set it up in Contacts so I can dial the number from Contacts and avoid having to try to dial the "1". This seems to have improved and it may be finally fixed. October 10: I just received a call supposedly from Google and needed to press "1" to confirm my listing. However, the phone would not let me press "1" until after the caller hung up. Each time I pressed the "1" key, the phone flashed a black screen for a second, implying that pressing the "1" key was not permitted. It's just the "1" key I have problems with; all the other keys work fine. The other day, I needed to key in an account number with a "1" in it; I could not get the "1" to work.

Update: The other day, I was unable to answer a call because the phone wouldn't allow me to swipe to answer. As there is no other means to answer a call, I had to let it go into voicemail.

If a call comes in as "No Caller ID" or "Unknown Caller" you can't set up a contact for it and mark it as blocked. Your phone will ring every time (unless you have turned the ringer off for all calls).

iOS 10 has added two bugs: When blocking or unblocking a contact, the Contacts app will either lock up or sometimes respond slowly (10 to 15 seconds). Since I have crash reporting turned on, I expect Apple will fix this with the next release. iOS 10.3.3: I believe this has been fixed.

The second bug: On the notification screen, it will show you missed calls. Then it will say, "Swipe for more information." Swiping does not give you more information, it calls the person back. That's not what I want to do.

If your voice mail is 100% full, the app won't show you this until you go into voice mail.

When playing a voice mail message, the pause does not work. The screen flashes black and the message continues playing. iOS 10.1.1: Fixed.

Desired feature: When a call comes in and on the list of recent calls, the name and type of call shows up. I would rather have the name and company name show up. Sometimes, I don't remember what company a person is associated with. iOS 10.3.3: No change.

Desired feature: If I'm in an app when the phone rings, I can accept or decline the call. I want to be able to do this when I'm on the home screen. I can mute the ringer, but I can't decline the call. If I put my phone back in my pants pocket, I run the risk of accidentally answering the call. iOS 10.3.3: No change.

Weather

The Weather app is atrocious and I'm surprised that The Weather Channel allows its logo to be included. It's especially interesting to watch the app update the forecast to the actual as you go through the day. For example, at 10 a.m., it might say the temperature is 60º at 10 a.m. but that it will be 75º at 11 a.m. No it won't. 

Most days, the high temperature for the day is higher than the highest hourly temperature. See picture to right; the high for the day is 88 degrees but that high is never reached during the day. You may argue that the high is still accurate, but just not at the top of the hour. I still consider it a bug. iOS 10.3.3: Not fixed.

The Weather app requires that you turn on location tracking even when the app isn't being used. Why are you spying on me and using up my battery?

Desired feature: Include the humidity with the temperature. Especially in the summer in Ohio, the humidity can have a major influence on the perceived temperature.

Keyboard

The prediction capability of the keyboard is helpful yet infuriating. I don't like it when it takes perfectly valid words and changes them into invalid words. I thought it learned my vocabulary but I seem to be mistaken as I have to correct it over and over again for some words, especially slang.

When I type "a.m." or "U.S.", the keyboard turns capitalization on after the period even though I the next letter is not capitalized 90% of the time.  Example: "I will leave at 4:45 p.m. and head home." The "a" on "and" should not be capitalized but it will try to capitalize it. It should monitor my typing and turn the capitalization on only when I'm at the end of a sentence. 10.3.3: I have turned capitalization assistance off. It was just wrong too many times.

Desired feature: If I type a number, then a space, the keyboard returns to showing letters instead of numbers. I want it to stay with numbers.

Messages

When I see a full message through the Notification Center or just from the list of messages, the unread message indicator is not cleared. I have to go into the actual message to clear the indicator even though I have already read it. This is especially annoying when the message is "K". iOS 10.3.3: Not fixed but worse now because I often am able to read the full message before I unlock the phone.

Sending a message with a picture is weird. If I click on the camera icon first, I can now add a message to the picture (this was added at some point in iOS 9). If I enter the message before clicking on the camera icon, the message will not be sent with the picture.

General User Interface

The icon used to add an item to a list of items is not consistent. The Stocks, Contacts, World Clock and Calendar apps uses a + sign, which is what I would expect. However, Notes and Messages use a box with a pencil instead. The Weather app uses a + in a circle to add a location.

Notes

The search box is normally shown on apps that have a search capability, such as Safari. However, Notes hides the search box until you scroll. It doesn't take up much space, so it should always appear. iOS 10: It's still a bit hidden but easy to find. I consider this fixed.

Stocks

I was watching Apple stock one day when the price changed dramatically. I noticed that the dividend yield was not recalculated as the price changed. iOS 10.3.3: Not fixed.

App Store
Recently, when I went into my Facebook review to update it, the review was completely gone. I will go through and back up my reviews after this. iOS 10.3.3

On September 12, 2017, the update history in the App Store was wiped out. It's going to be a moot point soon as the history only retains the last update. But still, I'm surprised that that happened. iOS 10.3.3

Desired feature: There needs to be an API that an app can use to determine if I've written a review for the app. Some apps ask me to write a review when I have already done so. I find this annoying. iOS 10.3.3: No change.

Desired feature: When I look at purchased apps, they seem to be listed by the most recently installed to the earliest installed. I would also like a list in alphabetic order so that I can find a desired app quicker. iOS 10.3.3: No change.

Desired feature: When I open the App Store, it always opens to the Featured screen. I would prefer that it open to the last screen that I was on (almost always the Updates screen) or allow me to choose which screen it should open to. The Featured screen has heavy graphics and typically takes a bit to display. iOS 10.3.3: No change.

Safari

Desired feature: Unlike the Chrome browser for the iPhone, you can't search on a page for a word or phrase. iOS 10.3.3: Not fixed.

That sums it up. Feel free to use the comments for corrections or additions.

Updated October 3: Added screen shot of Weather app and iOS 10 comments.

Updated October 5: Added problems with Contacts and Voice Mail. Added a desired feature to the App Store about the screen the app opens to.

Updated October 10: Added to discussion about pressing "1".

Updated October 20: Added a second new bug to the Phone and Contacts (including Voice Mail) section for iOS 10.

Updated November 4: The voice mail pause has been fixed.

Updated December 6: Added note that I was not able to answer a call.

Final update September 26, 2017 before iOS 11.

Google News has flaws

Google News, viewed with Google Chrome on my Apple iPhone 4S, has five flaws. When I view Google News, I am signed on to my Google account. This customizes the news for me.

First, look at these screen shots, taken today, one at 8:30 a.m. EDT (United States) and one at 8:32 p.m. Do you see any difference with the news? Nope, neither do I. The thing that bothers me the most is the age of the stories. In the a.m. version, the China story is supposedly one hour old. Shouldn't it be 13 hours ago 12 hours later? How do I get new stories? Eventually (overnight), they will be updated but during the day I have to manually refresh the display. Even after I manually refresh, it still tends to revert to the early-morning version.

Second, as you know. Major League Baseball games are played in a series of two or more games (up to five when the Chicago Cubs played the Cincinnati Reds recently). Google News has no concept of separate games, completely mixing up the stories about the games in the series. I would prefer that each game in the series be listed separately with the pregame and postgame stories shown together.

Third, Google News does not evaluate the quality of the news sources but figures that the last news source is the best. This results in the main story being from a dodgy source (like a site that scrapes stories from other sites) or an Associated Press story instead of the breaking story from the local news media. Take the first story above. The main source is a newspaper in Nigeria. Nigeria? Clicking on "More sources" gives you stories from Sydney Morning Herald (yes, Sydney as in Australia) and Daily News & Analysis. If I click on "all 397 news articles," I get a list of articles about sending advisers to Iraq and not a peep about China (this normally doesn't happen; it's just a glitch). Normally, I get the better stories only if I click through.

I recently wanted to read about an incident in Miami, Florida. The first story was an AP story in the Seattle (Washington) Post-Intelligencer. I had to dig to get an actual story from a television station in Miami. I miss the days when there was only one copy of Associated Press stories. Now there are dozens of them, all repeated ad nauseam as if they were unique.

Fourth, I have local news sections for two cities (Norwood, Ohio, where I live and Brookville, Ohio, where I work some of the time). These sections were rarely updated, although that may be fixed once I complained. Here is an example from April 1 (no fooling):

So which is it? A delay or an approval? If you look closely, the first story is dated March 18 and the second April 1. In those days, a story could stick for a month or more even though there's always new news to replace it. I had a disgusting Brookville child molestation story stuck on there for so long (over a month) that I finally flamed Google and it was fixed within hours. (There is an option to provide feedback about News separately from feedback about Chrome.)

Finally, on my iPhone the page takes at least 15 seconds to load (Aug. 13: 29 seconds). To load Google News on my MacBook Pro, using the same wireless Internet connection, takes three seconds. I suspect the problem is with either DNS lookup or SSL negotiation. Update Aug. 24: The problem is a Chrome problem that affects other sites as well. I have filed a report with Google but no fix yet.

I will still use Google News but I am still frustrated with its limitations. Thanks, Google, for letting me vent about this on Blogger, operated by Google. I will update this post as the situation improves.

Updated Aug. 13: Added/changed load times.

Using Disqus for comments? I won't be commenting.

If you're using Disqus for comments, I won't be commenting on your site. I have just spent 15 minutes with Chrome trying to post a comment to no avail. If I go to the Disqus site, it says I'm signed in, but if I go back to the CNNMoney Apple 2.0 page I was on, there is no way to post a comment. I'm "disqusted" and I give up; it should be easier than this. Beware of Friday the 13th!

I have third-party cookies blocked. If you need a third party cookie to do your work, you're not doing it right.

Ironically, I was signed in and fine until I received an email from Disqus that someone had posted a response to my message. That email message apparently signed me out of Disqus and I haven't been able to post a witty response since.

Update June 6, 2014: I am back to using Disqus again. I need to sign in before writing my comment as the act of signing in deletes everything I've typed so far. I still don't allow third-party cookies and I can usually get signed in to Disqus now.

iOS 7 or iPhone 6: Improvements that I would like to see

Apple Computer is going to release iOS 7 for the iPhone and iPad this fall. They are also expected to release a new iPhone this fall (either a 5S or 6). I currently am using an iPhone 4S running iOS 6. Here are some improvements that I would like to see in the new operating system and/or phone:

• The date on the Calendar app changes every day. I want the Weather app to show the correct current temperature (now it always shows 73º) and the Clock app to show the correct local time (now it always shows 10:15). I understand that changing the Weather and Clock apps could use up the battery faster but I'm confident that Apple can figure out how to accomplish this without wasting battery power (mostly by not updating when I can't see the display).
• I want to select the default browser (I prefer Chrome to Safari) and the default maps (Google Maps is still more accurate than Apple's Maps app).
• Many apps (such as Facebook and LinkedIn) include a browser within the app. When you're done with a page in the browser, you tap the back arrow at the top of the screen to go back to the app. Others (sorry, I can't come up with an example) use Safari to display web pages. However, in Safari, there is no back arrow to go back to the app; you have to leave Safari and try to remember which app you were in. The link to Safari should have a back arrow to take you back to the app.
• Speaking of back arrows, why is Safari's at the bottom of the screen instead of the top like every other app?
• Here's one that has to be fixed in hardware: There are two speakers at the bottom of the phone. That's great for portrait mode, but when I rotate the phone to look at a video in landscape mode, the way it was designed to be seen, all of the sound comes out of the left side. There needs to be one or two speakers on the top as well (the second added speaker is for people who rotate the other way).
• When I go into a restaurant with free Internet through wi-fi my phone connects to it with a minimum amount of hassle. So far, so good. Sometimes, the wi-fi is dog slow and I can't do anything with it. Currently, I have to turn the wi-fi off so I can get the faster speed of 3G (yes, it does happen that 3G is faster). I want the phone to select the faster of wi-fi or 3G (4G for later models) for my connection in this situation.
• I would like two improvements to the Contacts list in the Phone app: The ability to rearrange the sequence of phone numbers in a contact and the ability to display the company name in place of the phone number type. For example, if I look at my recent calls, I see that Sam at "work" called me recently. I would prefer that the entry say Sam at Acme Staffing Service (not the real company) instead. I usually don't care what number within the contact he used to call me.

That's all the changes I want today. Let's see how many of these get fixed in the next release of software and hardware.

Updated July 21 to fix grammar and formatting.

I want a touch screen on my laptop

I'm a big fan of John Gruber and Daring Fireball, but this time I think he's wrong. He's right in that I don't need the same user interface (UI) for both a phone/tablet and a personal computer but I do want a touch screen on my laptop. I played with Microsoft's Surface on Thursday and touching the screen seemed natural to me. Sure, I still want the trackpad for the fine work (I don't use a mouse with my laptop) but I'm used to a touch screen from using my iPhone. If I had a choice, I would rather have a touch screen than a Retina display.

And if I could have a numeric keypad it would be the icing on the cake (Hey, it's my blog, so I can ask for anything). By the way, I noticed the two-finger method worked on the Surface; did Apple license their patent to Microsoft?

My current laptop is a MacBook Pro (with the 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 processor). I expect my next laptop to have a touch screen. If Apple isn't going to provide it, then I'll have to buy one from someone else. I may go the Hackintosh route but I may not; Windows 7 is working well for me.

I like the annual improvements in the Apple products, but I do worry that they're not improving enough. Why, on my iPhone, when I am reading an ABC News story on Chrome do I get a request to install the ABC News app, when I already have it installed? Why can't I make Chrome my default browser (I like it better than Safari and it syncs my bookmarks between my iPhone and my laptop)? How is it that Chrome can automatically update itself when other apps can't?