The 5 New Features We'd Like To See In Apple's iOS 8

A year ago, we published a list of the new features we wanted to see in iOS 7. Today, we're publishing a new list. Here are the five new features we'd love to see in iOS 8:

Rethink Newsstand

Your local Barnes & Noble store (if you still have one), sells both books and magazines. In iOS, there are two stores -- Newsstand, and the iBookstore. This just doesn't make sense. In iOS 8, Apple should ditch Newsstand and move magazine purchases to the optional iBooks app.

Freebie Wish List

While Apple receives kudos for finally adding a wish list feature in the App Store, it doesn’t go far enough. Free apps can’t be added to this list. Most people will probably use the Wish List to add apps they can’t purchase right now due to financial constraints. However, file size could also be a factor. Some of today’s most popular apps are over 1GB in size, and many of these are free. Apple should remove the restrictions, and allow users to add any app to the Wish List.

Weather and Stock apps on iPad

It continues to flabbergast many that Apple doesn’t add its native Weather and Stocks apps to the iPad. This continues to be a head scratcher in iOS 7 since both apps on the iPhone have been beautifully redesigned. Why not bring these to iPad, Apple?

Let the user choose the default maps app

We get it, Apple. You want everyone with an iOS device to use the native Maps app. Guess what? Despite its many improvements, iOS 7 Maps isn't the only game in town. Because of this, Apple should give users a choice of which maps app should be their default on the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad. These choices should at least include Apple’s own app, plus Google Maps, and MotionX GPS. Add Google's Waze and we'd be all set.

App previews

Six years after the App Store first debuted and users are still unable to try apps before they buy. Many developers have launched “lite” versions to get around this limitation, but that only goes so far. Apple should allow developers to offer apps with time and/or content limits that expire after a threshold is reached. This way, users would have a better idea of what to expect from an app without spending a dime, and developers would have the choice to ditch "lite" apps once and for all. We'll be spending a lot of time in the coming months discussing the new features we'd like to see in iOS 8. Until our next report, it's your turn. What new features do you want to see in iOS 8?