In Depth: iOS 6: 16 things we want to see

iOS 6: what we'd like to see

iOS 5 is a lovely thing, but we'd hardly finished installing the upgrade before we started thinking about what else Apple could add.

We don't mean pointless doo-hickeys or unnecessary eye candy for our iPad, iPhone and iPod touch though: we mean solid, sensible improvements that would make our iOS devices better and our smiles wider.

We've come up with sixteen iOS 6 features we want. Any that we've missed?

1. Siri

There's no obvious reason why Siri can't work on the iPhone 4, iPad 2 or iPod touch. For now it's iPhone 4S-only, which we suspect is partly because it's a beta and partly because Apple wants to sell its latest iPhone. For Siri to come to all recent iOS devices, Apple would have to decide that Siri's world domination is more important than selling a few more 4Ses.

2. Voice choice

Siri's gender changes as she crosses the Atlantic: in the US she's female, but in the UK she's male. Apparently Brits prefer bossy bloke voices to lovely lady ones. They obviously didn't ask us. Could we have a choice, please?

3. Smart Actions

Apple doesn't have a lock on bright ideas, and we really like the Smart Actions that Motorola's added to its new Razr. Smart Actions are essentially smart rules, so for example you might get your phone to turn its ringer off in areas you've said are "Quiet Locations". iOS does this to an extent with its location-aware reminders, but it could do much more.

4. NFC

If the mobile wallet's going to take off - and for now it's still firmly in the coming-soon category - then we'd like to be part of the mobile money party too. It'd be interesting to see which route Apple took: would it team up with existing payment providers, or would it use iTunes accounts instead? Our money's on the latter.

5. iMessaging to OS X

iMessage is really clever and genuinely useful, but for now you can iMessage people on iOS but not on Macs. And while we're on the subject of communication...

6. Facetime 3G

Facetime on 3G could well be rubbish when the signal isn't up to much, but in some cases a good quality 3G signal offers a better connection than a coffee shop's crappy, congested WiFi access point.

7. More elegant app switching

On iOS 5, iPad 2 owners can swipe between running apps. It's great, and while making it work on smaller devices might involve a rethink - four-fingered swipes aren't ideal on a phone screen - it'd be worth doing. App switching on the iPhone is a bit of a pain.

8. A new Maps app

iOS's Maps app is fine, but it's really just Google Maps given a pretty face. Rivals offer satnav-style systems with turn-by-turn navigation, and we suspect that the lack of any really exciting new features in Maps is because Apple's working hard on its own, Google-free version. It's certainly been busy snapping up map-related tech firms.

9. A hide button for native apps

For us it's Stocks; for you, it might be Game Center or Newsstand. It's the Apple app you don't want, will never use and cannot kill. If we can't take the native apps off altogether, at least let us hide the damn things.

10. Apps that aren't from World of Leather

We're all for making apps look like real-world things, but we'd rather those things weren't sofas. We're looking at you, Find My Friends. And you, Pages.

11. User accounts

We've been banging on about this for ages, and we're going to keep on doing it: iPads are family devices, and multiple accounts - or at least, a Guest mode - would stop our little darlings emailing Princess Party invitations to all our work contacts. We'd love to have an iPad each, but we're as likely to buy a pet unicorn.

12. Bigger folders

Especially on the iPad.

13. Panorama Mode

We know it's in there - Conrad Kramer found it on Monday - and we know from our Sony cameras that panoramas are fun.

14. Quicker access to Airplane Mode

Maybe it's just us, but getting to the Airplane Mode toggle seems awfully clunky. Couldn't we just have it in the notification area instead?

15. Multitasking App Store

The current iOS App Store quits whenever you download anything, which is an enormous pain in the backside when you're considering multiple updates. Background downloading would be much more elegant.

16. App data backups

The combination of finite storage space and near-infinite numbers of apps means we often have to temporarily uninstall things to make room for newcomers. That means we lose their data, which can be a pain in apps such as games. A per-app data backup option for iCloud would make us very happy.

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