Looking for an SDK

With the end of February 2008 fast approaching, Apple's self-imposed deadline to deliver a SDK for the iPhone and iPod Touch is also nearly past. And with the last Tuesday in February behind us, the chances of any sort of special media event to unveil the SDK and/or any significant update to iTunes to support it has also passed. But with three days left in the month, Apple could still sneak something in under the wire.

So, in anticipation of such an enabling event, I am posting here something I wrote up all the way back in October, 2007, prior to Steve Jobs' announcement that an official SDK was coming. Without further adieu, and without any editing to account for the passage of time, here is what I was looking for from the iPhone way back then. Let's see how much of it comes to fruition in the coming weeks and months once the official SDK arrives (and yes, I know, many of these features and apps have come about for those willing to hack/jailbreak their device and install unsupported applications).

Here goes:

From 10/9/2007

Things the iPhone Needs:

(All of these are software-based. Hardware additions, like GPS, 3G wireless data networking, flash for the camera, etc., are excluded since they cannot easily be added or integrated into the existing hardware version of the iPhone.)

1) A “Disk Use” mode like every other iPod, even if limited to a special unencrypted area on the unit’s solid-state “disk;”

2) Local offline file storage for e-mail attachments, etc. Being able to view PDF/Word/Excel attachments is one thing, being able to save them for later viewing is another (much better) thing;

3) An eBook reader, complete with bookmark functionality, combined with eBooks made available through the iTunes Store (likely in a secured Adobe Acrobat format);

4) A separate To Do List application with links to the Calendar app for reminders on to-do items;
5) An updated Notes app with sync capability through iTunes to iCal, Outlook, and/or Entourage;
6) An updated Calculator with Scientific and/or Business functions;
7) Video capture capability for the Camera application or in a separate Camcorder app (perhaps even with video upload capability to YouTube or .Mac);
8) A “Scores” widget, like the Weather and Stocks widgets, but designed to call up your favorite teams’, leagues’, or conferences’ sports scores of the day or week;
9) Voice memo recording capability and/or application, perhaps with “Use as Ringtone” feature as well; and, of course,
10) Flash and/or Java capabilities added to mobile Safari.