Five on Friday: 5 times we wish Apple would listen to us

You’ve seen it before – the long, snaking lines of people eagerly waiting to be the one of the first to get their hands on the latest iPhones.

It’s very likely to happen again when the new iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro drop in Singapore on Sep 16. The bigger Plus version will be released a bit later, on Oct 7. And for those who can’t wait to secure theirs, pre-orders open on Friday (Sep 9) evening.

Fans of the iPhone would be pleased to hear that the upgraded models will feature a few bells and whistles – from better photographic capacities to an “emergency SOS” function that will work even when the device is outside of Wifi coverage.

And wait, there’s also a new Apple Watch Ultra for the hardcore athletes. 

While all these features sound great, there are others I wish they would add (or bring back).

In this week’s Five on Friday, I imagine what I would suggest to the Apple engineers:

EXPANDABLE MEMORY

I’m about to take a photo of a priceless moment and suddenly, my iPhone suddenly tells me that I’m out of storage space.

This is when I either rush to look through my older files, trying to delete those that aren’t important, or I upload to the cloud to free up more space on my phone.

The moment is lost. Have you been in a similar situation?

Sometimes it isn’t even photos or videos that are taking up space – it could be the data on the apps you regularly use.

This is when it would be nice to have an iPhone with an expandable memory storage space. Pop in a memory card and you won’t have to delete another photo on your phone again. 

Of course, uploading to the cloud is a simple solution – albeit one that also requires a subscription you will need to continue paying for.

In Singapore, the iPhone 14 starts at S$1,299 for the 128GB model and goes up to S$1,799 for the 512GB model. If you want a 512GB iPhone 14 Pro Max, you will need to fork out a whopping S$2,629.

In comparison, you can buy a 512GB Samsung microSD card for about S$120. 

EARPHONE JACK

I like my Bluetooth earphones, I really do.

I like that I can simply connect and go, without worrying about the wires getting all tangled up inside my bag. But I’m also quite forgetful and often forget that they need charging. Sometimes the Bluetooth connection isn’t as great as I’d like and it would keep breaking off while I’m trying to listen to music.