[apple007]

After 5 weeks with my iPhone, I finally got around to compiling and submitting my list of bug reports and feature requests to Apple. I thought I'd post a copy below in case anyone has any thoughts, feedback, etc. (note: they're not listed in order of importance/priority):

BUG REPORT - PLAYLIST -- In iPod/Playlists, I have my iTunes smart playlist "Top 25 Most Played" set to sync to iPhone automatically. However, instead of the actual Top 25 songs being synced, the "Top 25" playlist on my iPhone is just 25 random songs from my iTunes library, including several that haven't been played more than once or twice. I have tried deleting the playlist from iPhone and re-syncing as well as deleting the playlist in iTunes and re-creating it, but this bug persists.

BUG REPORT - CALENDAR SYNCING -- When syncing Calendar events created on iPhone, such events are supposed to be synced to the iCal calendar specified in the iTunes preference pane. However, in my experience, such items are being synced to the bottom-most calendar in my iCal calendar list. For me, that calendar is one called "U.S. Holidays", which is a read-only calendar that is downloaded/updated automatically via Apple.com. *This creates a potentially serious problem: Events can be synced from iPhone to iCal and then get overwritten/deleted when the read-only calendar is updated.*

MINOR PROBLEM - HAIR CAUGHT IN BEZEL -- My (very short) sideburns often get caught in the bezel while I'm talking on the phone. Not the end of the world but a minor annoyance nonetheless.

EASE OF USE/FEATURE REQUEST - ADDRESS BOOK/CONTACTS -- Just as Address Book is a default dock item, I would like to see Contacts as a main-screen app on iPhone. It seems counterintuitive to have to go into the Phone app to find, add or edit a contact since iPhone obviously does a lot more than make calls. FURTHER, I would like Contacts to be better sorted. E.g., when I'm in the Phone app, I'd like *only* the contacts with a phone number to appear in the contacts list. Likewise, if creating an email, I'd like *only* those contacts with an email address to appear in the list. For people with large contacts lists (I have 1,500-plus), this would make finding contacts much easier.

FEATURE REQUEST - MESSAGE WAITING INDICATORS ON UNLOCK SCREEN -- I like that the Unlock screen tells me if I missed any calls or text messages but I don't like that I need to unlock the screen to see if any emails are waiting. I would like to see a simple 3-icon message-waiting status bar added to the Unlock screen so I can see, without unlocking the phone, if I have missed any calls (Phone), text messages (Text) or emails (Mail). (Obviously, Phone, Text and Mail are the only three apps/icons that might have messages waiting and need attention.)

FEATURE REQUEST - DASHBOARD -- As much as I like all of the available iPhone apps, the main screen obviously has limited space. I'd like to see Contacts moved to the main screen (see above) and perhaps a Dashboard-type feature added in which apps like YouTube and Stocks (and other widget-type apps added to iPhone in the future) can reside off the main screen.

BUG REPORT - CALENDAR ALARMS -- I have iCal set to sync all calendars to iPhone but the other day an iCal alarm that I had set to remind me of an event 90 days in the future did not show up on iPhone. The alarm/reminder appeared on my PowerBook as it was supposed to but it never appeared on my iPhone that day.

BUG REPORT - INCONSISTENT ORDERING OF PHONE NUMBERS & EMAIL ADDRESSES IN CONTACTS -- Whereas phone numbers and email addresses are listed in a consistent manner in Address Book (e.g., always Work, Mobile, Home, Work Fax, etc. for phone numbers, or Work, Home for email addresses), phone numbers and email addresses in Contacts on iPhone appear to be listed in descending order from the most recently added phone number or email address to the least recently added. This creates odd/counterintuitive situations where Home Fax or Work Fax is listed as the top phone number for a contact. I would like to see all phone numbers and email addresses listed in a consistent manner in all contact entries (preferably matching the sorting in a user's Address Book).

BUG REPORT - INCONSISTENT PHONE NUMBER FORMATTING -- This is minor, but phone number formatting is not consistent from Address Book to Contacts on iPhone. E.g., I have phone numbers formatted as 123.456.7890 in Address Book but they currently get re-formatted as (123) 456-7890 on iPhone.

FEATURE REQUEST - TEXT MSG DELIVERY CONFIRMATION/STATUS -- I really like the Text app on iPhone; it's far and away the best text messaging app I've ever used. However, it seems to be missing a key feature: Delivery confirmation/status for sent text messages. With Verizon, for example, I could click on any text message and find out if it's been delivered and, if so, the exact time it was delivered. On iPhone, no such confirmation is available, which leaves users wondering if an unanswered message was delivered, or if the recipient's phone is off, etc., etc.

FEATURE REQUEST - ABILITY TO SAVE VOICEMAIL MESSAGES AS AUDIO FILES -- Visual voicemail is outstanding but one thing would make it better: The ability to save a message(s) to iTunes as an .mp3 or other file. Occasionally, I find myself wanting to save a voicemail message for business or sentimental reasons. Right now, voice messages are stored on iPhone but there's apparently no way to save them permanently (or, like with Verizon, to re-save them indefinitely in my voicemail box).

EASE OF USE - AUTOMATIC SYNCING OF MOVIES TO iPHONE -- While everything else seems to sync from iTunes to iPhone automatically, I've noticed that to sync a movie newly-added to iTunes, such movies need to be enabled manually in the iPhone panel in iTunes. This has resulted in newly-added movies not being added to my iPhone when I assumed they had been synced over. I understand space is limited on iPhone and that might be the reason for the lack of auto-syncing of movies, but perhaps a dialog box could appear asking if the user wants a newly-added movie synced to iPhone. This would avoid using up iPhone space unnecessarily while also ensuring a newly-added movie gets synced if the user wants it to be.

FEATURE REQUEST - ABILITY TO DISABLE THE "DELETE THIS MOVIE?" DIALOG BOX -- This dialog box is nice and makes sense for large, full-length movies that might take up 500MB or 1GB of space, but I have several small (5MB) movie clips on my iPhone that I will want to keep permanently. It would be great to be able to disable the "keep/delete" dialog box, or at least have a "keep forever" option added to the dialog box that could disable the "keep/delete" box on a movie-by-movie basis.

FEATURE REQUEST - ABILITY TO DELETE INDIVIDUAL CALLS FROM "RECENTS" MENU -- As in the Mail app, I'd like an Edit button added to the Recents menu which would allow me to delete individual calls from my Recents menu. This would be helpful for a lot of reasons; e.g., if I dial a wrong number, I'd like to be able to delete it immediately, *without* needing to use the Clear All option that deletes my entire call history.

FEATURE REQUEST - ABILITY TO TURN EMAIL SIGNATURE OFF FOR A PARTICULAR MESSAGE -- Given the tediousness of deleting large blocks of text on iPhone, it would be great if an email signature could be disabled for any given outgoing Mail message via a menu option or button in Mail.

FEATURE REQUEST - JUNK MAIL FILTERING FOR MAIL -- No explanation necessary.

BUG REPORT - ERRORS CAUSE MAIL TO STOP CHECKING FOR NEW MAIL -- Two or three times now, Mail's attempt to check for new mail has failed for some reason. This apparently causes Mail to *completely* stop checking for new mail as regularly scheduled (every 15 minutes, etc.) unless/until the next time the user manually opens Mail, which automatically triggers the check-for-new-mail mechanism. Obviously, this leads to a catch-22: A user might not click into Mail for hours if there's no new mail showing, but Mail apparently won't check for new mail until the user opens the Mail app. (I've previously recommended this for the desktop Mail.app and will do so again for iPhone's Mail app: Some type of warning icon should show up on the Mail icon, just like the numbers that show up indicating new mail, to alert the user whenever Mail.app or iPhone's Mail app fails to successfully check for new email.)

BUG REPORT - THE MAIL APP OFTEN CHECKS FOR NEW EMAIL TWICE IN UNDER A MINUTE -- This isn't a bug, per se, so much as a limitation or a counterintuitive/counterproductive feature right now. Whereas Apple recommends checking email as infrequently as possible to conserve battery life, Mail's check-for-new-email-every-time-it's-opened feature is self-defeating right now. E.g., I have Mail set up to check for new mail in 15-minute intervals. If my iPhone beeps to alert me that new email(s) are waiting and I click into Mail, that immediately triggers Mail to check for new mail yet again, which might only be 10 seconds after Mail's last new-email check. If checking for new email is such a battery drain, I'd like Mail to stick to the set intervals and *not* check for new mail every single time I click into Mail.

FEATURE REQUEST - HAVE CHECKING FOR NEW MAIL HAPPEN ON A SET SCHEDULE -- Related to the prior item above and given that checking for new mail can automatically happen no often than every 15 minutes, I'd like to know exactly when the Mail app is checking for new mail. E.g., if I have Mail set to check my email every 15 minutes, I'd like it to always happen at :00, :15, :30 and :45 past the hour. That way, if I glance at my iPhone at 3:18 or 6:43, I'll know that Mail was either just checked or is about to be checked.