I don’t consider myself to be a very heavy mobile user. Apart from the usual SMS and receiving calls, I sometimes use the camera, or the included Wifi-capability of my phone to browse a bit around while on the go and use the mystic messenger emails android chat. However, there is a set of features which I sorely miss in my device, and other devices I’ve used. I’ve compiled a list here, and I can only hope some developer stumbles on this page, and decides to implement those. Apart from affordable phone plans, they could still go a long way in making a device much more usable. They are not too difficult to implement I think, so here goes nothing…

Timed Profiles

I think it must be Nokia that came up with this bright idea years ago. Indeed, it’s a very good feature (at least it is for me). I don’t have to remember to set my device to Silent before going to lectures and such. But since it was implemented, the feature has hardly evolved.

Also, accessing this feature is a pain in itself. In Nokia devices, you have to dig through the menus down to Profiles, and there you get the option to activate it.

The only thing you can do is set a profile, then time another to expire at a time. After that, the other profile will activate, and when the time is up, the previous profile will be activated automatically. Easy to understand but not very useful.

What would have been useful is able to repeat the expiry time or even plan the expiry of profiles over the week. Say, General profile will be active from 18h to 23h, Sleep profile will activate from 23h to 07h. And Silent active from 07h to 18h. And that schedule will be applicable only during weekdays, while during weekends, you have another set of times.

But no, for now, you can’t have it in-built. Yet.

Delay SMS Sending

Another feature I sorely miss. It’s not even available on the networks as a service most of the time! Oh, I do agree there are ways to do without, like setting a reminder and have it sent at a particular date and time. This was possible in my old handset, but not now. It’s as if handsets are de-evolving! Now, on my N85, I don’t even have a stopwatch, while the good old 3310 had one!

Anyway, back to the point. What I want is a way to compose a message and save it. Then set it to be sent at a date and time. Sometimes, you need to remind a friend to bring you something, but only on the eve of the day you meet. You have to remember to send that message yourself, even if your device could have done the remembering with more ease.

Again no, it doesn’t exist yet as an in-built facility. Not in any device I know of. It may exist as an addon-application, but it needs to be in-built!

LED to indicate new stuff E.g. Missed Calls or SMS pending

My good old Sony Ericsson had a LED outside that flashed. But the problem is that it flashed just to indicate that the phone was on. Kind of a waste if you ask me. It could have been put to much better use as BlackBerry did.

BlackBerry devices have a small LED light that flashes when you have pending sms, calls or emails. Why don’t all devices have that? Even the high-end ones don’t!

Better yet would have the LED flash different colors for different things missing, maybe in order of priority. SMS pending flashes blue. Missed calls flashes red. But if you had both, the light would still flash red. At least you’d know from afar if you had something waiting, without having to touch the phone, or press a key to know.

If this is not possible, just make the LED flash at different speeds for different things.

But no, for now, I have to content myself with a dumb LED that tells me my phone is on. Very useful indeed!

All those small, but useful applications that were in older devices

Stopwatch? Timer? Alarm? Flashlight? Please, I bought a device that was multiples of the price of those lower-end phones, but still, it didn’t have all the features of those phones in them. I don’t have a stopwatch! I really need a stopwatch sometimes, and I don’t have one. Not in a device that costs nearly $300! What the hell! A device that costs $100 has it!

That is not fair developers! Give us those features back. We deserve them. And most of them are mostly software, so you can’t complain that it’ll take space inside the device as hardware.

There you go. I have completed my list of 3 features I really miss on any handset I’ve used, and really wished they were there. Do you have a feature that you wished was there, but is not? Let us know. 😀