You still get FaceTime, you just can’t use it on certain networks.

In August, AT&T said it would block the video calling feature that will be found in Apple’s iPhone 5 as well as other Apple hardware that updates to iOS 6 unless customers are signed up for one of its new Mobile Shared Data plans. Customers on other plans can use FaceTime via Wi-Fi all they want, but the cellular network will be off limits.

AT&T justified this move in two ways: first it said by being open and transparent about the move it was following the rules that the FCC had implemented with regard to network neutrality on wireless networks. Two, it made a complicated argument around preloaded apps that basically boiled down to, “you can use anything you want on AT&T’s handsets over Wi-Fi, thus we aren’t blocking anything.”

Free Press, which is a network neutrality advocate, isn’t buying it. In release notifying AT&T of its intent to file (an FCC requirement) Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood offers the following quote:

“AT&T’s decision to block FaceTime unless a customer pays for voice and text minutes she doesn’t need is a clear violation of the FCC’s Open Internet rules. It’s particularly outrageous that AT&T is requiring this for iPad users, given that this device isn’t even capable of making voice calls. AT&T’s actions are incredibly harmful to all of its customers, including the deaf, immigrant families and others with relatives overseas, who depend on mobile video apps to communicate with friends and family.”

As I wrote after AT&T said it was not violating the Open Internet rules that forbid a carrier from blocking services that compete with its own services, this move is designed to do two things for AT&T. One, it pushes users to the newer shared data plans that help AT&T offset the loss in revenue from users deciding to dump texting and even voice plans. Two, it seeks to conflate Wi-Fi networks with cellular networks for purposes of abiding by the network neutrality rules.

By making Wi-Fi an equivalent of cellular, AT&T can keep traffic off its cellular network while also limiting where users can use over the top services. And while Wi-Fi networks are common, they aren’t everywhere. Verizon apparently recognizes this. The nation’s largest wireless carrier has said it will not block FaceTime on any device or on any network. Of course, Verizon does have a rather draconian plan already in place to get users to move over to its shared plans, so there you have it.

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Facebook has been swamped by a wave of scepticism about its prospects since its somewhat lackluster public offering last month, including concerns about a slowdown in revenue, and a fear that the giant social network has been struggling to monetize its growing mobile user base. On Monday, the company got a substantial leg up in both areas, when Apple announced that Facebook will be integrated into the new version of its iOS operating system. The only one likely to be unhappy about the move is Twitter, which had a somewhat unique relationship with Apple — until now.

As with the Twitter integration that Apple announced almost exactly a year ago at WWDC, the integration of Facebook into the iOS software connects the social network’s features to the operating system at a fairly deep level. After logging into the network on an iPhone or iPad, posting to Facebook will now become one of the menu of options that is shown to users from within any app, as well as from the device’s internal camera and built-in Apple services like Maps or Game Center. Status updates and other notifications will also show up in the main iOS notification panel (and in OSX).

Likes could create better app recommendations

Facebook integration shows up in some other interesting places as well — including the iOS app store, where users will now be able to click “like” on the apps that they use, a rating that could be used by both Apple and Facebook to target users based on their app-related behavior. Apple has been criticized for a lack of robust app-discovery features, and the signals provided by a user’s Facebook friends could help solve that problem. The network is also integrated into the Contacts part of iOS, which will theoretically make it a lot easier for mobile users to manage their contact lists, since information will be updated automatically whenever it changes on Facebook.

When Apple announced the Twitter integration last year, it was widely seen as a blow to Facebook, since the consumer electronics giant has a huge market share in mobile devices — and having the ability to post from any app or service makes it much more likely that users will do so. According to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, the service saw sign-ups by new users triple after the new integration was available. Now Facebook could get the benefit of those viral features, which may soothe some of the fears about a slowdown in user activity at the social network.

Apple and Facebook both get benefits from their new friendship

The move to integrate Facebook — which Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted about during a recent interview, by telling users to “stay tuned” when asked about a partnership with the giant social network — marks something of a rapprochement for the two companies. Facebook was widely believed to have been working with Apple on a deal to integrate some of its features into Apple’s own social network, known as Ping, but the deal fell apart. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the problem was the “onerous terms” demanded by Facebook.

Whatever the terms of the current arrangement are, it was likely too good to pass up for either party: Apple has been criticized by some for a lack of social elements in its services and devices, and while adding Twitter support helped that, integrating Facebook gives the company a much broader reach. For Facebook, meanwhile, being built into the iPhone and iPad on such a fundamental level makes it more likely that users will interact with the network even more from their mobile devices, and that in turn will boost the levels of engagement that Facebook uses to appeal to advertisers — and possibly open the door to more effective monetization options like e-commerce as well.

One of the potential bumps in this newfound friendship, however, could come when (or if) the social network introduces some kind of “Facebook phone,” something it is widely rumoured to be working on. Apple’s interest in helping to promote the company and its features might be tempered somewhat if it sees Facebook as a competitor in the phone market, but until then the arrangement seems like a win-win for both — and a loss for Apple’s former best friend Twitter.

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Refined notifications

iOS 5’s Notification Center completely revamped the way notifications are handled on iOS devices, but there are some spots that could use small tweaks that could make a big difference in usability. The most common complaint about Notification Center is how small the “clear” buttons are that remove notifications from the dropdown menu. They’re hard to hit even for my fingers. Making them bigger and including a “clear all” button would mitigate this small annoyance.

Another problem is that the Notification Center dropdown menu is hard to find — it wouldn’t surprise me if most people discover it as the result of an accidental swipe. Part of the problem is that when a notification pops up, it gives you no hint as to where it’s going. If notifications slid up and off the screen, rather than flipping over the top of the current application, it would better make known Notification Center’s existence.

Notification Center in its current form also breaks the “layered” UI concept in iOS built by the UIs for Folders, the multitasking tray and Siri, all of which are below iOS’s main UI, while Notification Center slides down from the top. A simple way to fix this would be to have Notification Center “push” the screen down when you swipe. In fact, there’s a jailbreak tweak called Flowtation that does just that (see video above) that Apple could take some cues from.

And last, a Do Not Disturb mode à la OS X Mountain Lion would be nice, allowing you to manually turn off notifications easily. It’d be nice if you could set start and end times for DND as well.

A more useful Siri

Thanks, Siri.

Apple still labels its Siri voice assistant feature as a beta product, and for good reason. When it works, it works incredibly well, but there’ve been times when I’ve been frustrated by Siri’s limitations. It works well with Apple’s apps, but, for instance, if I want to create a note in SimpleNote instead of the Notes app I’m out of luck. Creating a Siri API so that other apps can have specialized commands makes sense. Those that remember using the first iPhone know how limited it was without third-party apps. The same is true of Siri.

Siri could also use more commands to handle regular iOS tasks like turning off Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. One of the annoying things about iOS is that there’s no quick way to toggle these settings; you have to go into Settings and do a little navigating to find them. Adding this functionality to Siri would make these tasks far more efficient.

I also hope Siri gets full functionality in countries outside the United States, where mapping and Yelp data aren’t available.

Updated looks

iOS was introduced in 2007 with the original iPhone. Not much has changed in the basic look of iOS since then. Tab bars, toolbars and lists all look the same as they did five years ago. The Settings app still has pinstripes, a visual feature that hasn’t been used in OS X since Tiger. It feels like it’s time for a refresh.

Thankfully, it seems Apple agrees. You may have noticed that iPhoto for iOS uses a neutral silver-colored theme for its tab bar and background. Apple’s recently released WWDC app also has the same silver theme. This could just be an experiment, of course. Apple’s used iTunes as a UI testing bed for years, so they may just be doing the same thing here. But it could also mean we’ll see more broad changes to the look and feel of iOS soon.

A new Safari

We’ve covered the improvements made to Safari in Mountain Lion extensively, and I’d really like those improvements to trickle down to Safari on iOS as well. A unified search and address bar, access to iCloud tabs, an offline Reading List and a new loading animation would be excellent additions to the best mobile browser out there.

AirDrop

AirDrop was a feature introduced in OS X Lion that allows you to wirelessly transfer files from one Mac to another. That’s great for two people wtih Macs, but what if one of them has an iPhone? Why shouln’t I be able to AirDrop some documents from my Mac to a friend’s iPhone? Or from his iPhone to mine? Having AirDrop on iOS would make collaboration far easier, and would save me from having to email files back and forth with someone in the same room.

Better inter-app communication

Mac OS X has had a feature called Services since it debuted, something it inherited from NeXTSTEP. Services are basically a simple form of inter-app communication. If I selected some text in Safari, say, I could then email that selected text by using going to the Services menu and clicking that option. iOS doesn’t have anything like this. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just select some text, hit a button, and share it with another app?

On Android, an app can share data with any other app that can accept whatever data’s being shared through its Intents API. That’s a mouthful, but it basically means that I could share a photo from the photos app to the Facebook app just by hitting a button and choosing it. I think Apple’s been hesitant to implement something like this because the list of apps tends to get bloated (when I used Android, I had a list of 12 apps I could share photos to). However, I think the utility of this feature outweighs this drawback.

I’d be perfectly happy if only a few of these items make it into iOS 6. Either way, I’m looking forward to some surprises at WWDC 2012.

What do you want to see out of iOS 6? Tell us in the comments.

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9to5Mac cites “trusted sources” who say that iOS 6, the next version of the software to power the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, will ditch Google Maps as the source for the Maps app in favor of an Apple-built solution: a maps app whose technology is derived from several companies Apple has acquired over the past few years. It too will be called Maps:

The application design is said to be fairly similar to the current Google Maps program on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, but it is described as a much cleaner, faster, and more reliable experience.

According to the report, the app icon itself is also getting a slightly new look. It will still be a map view of Apple headquarters in Cupertino, but will have “a new color scheme.”

One of the features that Apple plans to highlight is its own version of Google’s Street View, a 3D-mapping mode. Here’s how it’s described:

The 3D mode does not come enabled by default, but users simply need to click a 3D button that is conveniently and visibly stored in the app. Perhaps under the fold like the current traffic, pin, and map view buttons. This 3D mode is said to essentially be technology straight from C3 Technologies: beautiful, realisitic graphics based on de-classified missile target algorithms.

Here’s why this report isn’t at all implausible:

• Apple did quietly buy up a bunch of mapping technology companies several years ago: PlaceBase in July 2009, Poly 9 in 2010 and C3 late last year. It’s reasonable to think that this would follow a similar pattern to what Apple did with Siri: buy an outside company for its technology and a few years down the line incorporate it into iOS.
• Apple always prefers not to be dependent on third-party technologies. It is at a place where it designs its own software and hardware, even down to the chips and battery and almost all of the key apps that come with iOS devices — with the exception of the Maps app and YouTube. In other words, moving from a third-party solution to an in-house one eventually would be very much in line with Apple’s philosophy and history.
• In particular, Apple probably would like to have as little to do with Google as possible. This is the same company that Steve Jobs promised to go “thermonuclear” on and accusing it of “grand theft” in designing Android. It makes sense not to incorporate product from one of your chief rivals in mobile into your most important product.

The report also claims that iOS 6 will be introduced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference scheduled for the second week of June. Be sure to head to 9to5Mac for videos and photos of what the 3D mapping product could look like.

Update: AllThingsD says it’s independently confirmed this news and hears that the new Maps app will “blow your head off.”

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