With only a few hours to go before Apple unveil the next iteration of the iPhone OS, I find myself wondering what they have in store for us. Last year everyone thought Copy  & Paste was coming, but Apple stated it was too far down the priority list for OS 2.0. This year is different though, as the OS matures I feel we will see more and more noteworthy features added. So what am I hoping for? What can we firmly expect?

Expected

Copy & Paste – Already well talked about on the rumor sites, this would be a welcome addition for most. Latest news suggests you will double tap on a word which then invokes the magnifier bubble, you then use it to select your text.

Multi-tasking – Ever been using an IM client and clicked on a link someone sends you? It opens Safari, then closes down your chat! Multi-tasking could solve this, but I fear it is too memory hungry to work flawlessly. I can’t see me opening a memory intensive game like Chop Sushi, then switching to Mail to read emails, then going back to the game, without any crashes.

Push Notification – Promised by Apple last September, this uses a ‘Cloud’ system where an App could store live data while it was closed, once you reopened the App, it streamed back the data off the Cloud to leave you back where you started. Either Apple have given up on it, or they have been fine tuning it all winter.

MMS - sending picture messages to other mobile users, would be handy for some, but I honestly find myself using email more and more these days. That said, being able to receive them direct to an Inbox would be a lot easier than going through your carriers website. I use an App called MMS [iTunes] for it at the moment

Wanted

Turn-by-Turn Sat Nav – If you’ve ever used your iPhone to plan a car journey you will know it’s basically no good. In fact, if you are driving alone it can become quite dangerous fiddling with the maps trying to figure out where you are! The fact no solution has been offered by a 3rd Party could be a clue.

Photo Booth – With the iPhone’s built in H264 and Core Image hardware, then why not? It works well enough with the iSight. It could even offer a video recording mode.

To-do’s – Where on earth are these? Why have Apple had the facility in Mail and iCal for so long and it’s nowhere to be seen on the iPhone? I’m putting money on this showing up in OS 3.0.

Notifications – Why does the iPhone only alert you to a text message or missed call? Why not emails too? I know it sounds bad, but a Windows Mobile style Agenda view with upcoming iCal events, To-do’s and Emails would be great.

Forwarding SMS – Ever been sent a funny joke and want to pass it on? It’s not possible without retyping it! I propose a method of holding your finger on a text bubble to bring up an menu of choices, such as Forward, Delete etc.

Phone number search – Currently you can only use the contact search to search by name. There’s been many times where a friend has asked me “whose number is this?” only for me to go through my whole phonebook looking for it!

Well that’s enough for now. I’ll be blogging my thoughts later on tonight after I’ve had a good watch of the Keynote. Stay tuned.