The missing pieces of OS X

…and iOS. Can they be improved?

During the next few months we’re likely to see major updates to OS X and iOS (Apple’s WWDC is June 8). It’s operating system upgrade cycle in recent years has been almost like clockwork, providing us with new features, along with the occasional interface overhaul. These things have kept our Macs and iOS devices fresh and made them more versatile. However, as well as Apple does, there are some missing pieces we hope will one day arrive. In this feature, we explore those features we hope are waiting in the wings. Some are rough edges that need polishing, while others are what we consider fairly major omissions we feel Apple needs to deal with quickly, before the Apple faithful rises up and marches on Cupertino (well, writes a fairly sternly worded but nonetheless extremely polite email to Tim Cook, anyway).

Given that Apple has increasingly mixed and matched features from its two operating systems, some of the missing pieces we’ve written about are common to OS X and iOS, and these are the first things in our list. Stability, iCloud, FaceTime and app discovery all have pretty big problems. Afterwards, we’ve concentrated on a range of possible fixes and features for OS X, before outlining a raft of improvements we would love to come to our iPhones and iPads.