I’ve pretty much been a lifelong BlackBerry user from the two-way beeper days before picking up the iPhone 3G a couple of months ago.  I also lead our WordPress for iPhone app so I got sucked into the iPhone world a bit more than I expected 🙂

Overall I’m super happy w/ the iPhone 3G so far – the browser rocks, having an iPod on me at all times is ideal, and the typical slick Apple UI is a joy to use.  Now with the 2.1 update, my biggest gripe – occasional keyboard lag – has been solved.

Like anyone though, I have a few other complaints/suggestions, and I figured I’d summarize them here with a digg inspired “7 feature requests/tweaks/fixes” I’d like to see:

1) Automatic zoom on double-tap.  Some emails and web sites zoom in perfectly when you double tap.   Others don’t zoom at all, and require the pinch/open gesture to control the zoom.  I’m sure this is a CSS things on the content site, but would like to see an option to override that.  One big offender is google email alerts – almost unreadable in iPhone mail with a tiny font, it requires the gesture to zoom in.

2) Google app support isn’t great and is buggy.  I get a “Safari cannot download this file” for my email on google apps.  Speaking of which, where is the native google calendar “sync” app – which works beautifully on blackberry

3) No way to search mail on the iPhone is a rally bummer.  I guess I got spoiled on the blackberry to the very slick google apps email client.

4) Photo browsing on the iPhone really kicks-ass, but the iPhoto sync options are too basic. Instead of “all” which is gigs for me of photos, or last import – which can be very random – how about a setting for “last 200 photos” – or “top viewed” photos ?  This issue for me would also be helped by a native Flickr app.

5) Battery management. Lots of people have complained about the battery.  I actually think the real issue is that it’s so fun and useful to use the iPhone that people are just using it way more than they did with their other phones.

But the bottom line is that the iPhone battery is running out mid-day for lots of people, and that is simply unacceptable.  So my suggestion, a smarter battery management system.  The system should guard and protect the most essential functions of the iPhone, which in my mind are the actual phone functions and SMS.  How could this be done ?  How about a setting that would trigger rationing and battery saving features when the battery hit 50% – such as dimming the screen, changing to manual for email, turning off wifi, etc.  Basically kick in all the suggestions Brian Lam of Gizmodo has made, but only when the battery is at X% – and have that X be user defined.

6) Way too easy to call someone by mistake. Make the contact screen selection ask you to “call” or sms” – I often try to click the arrow to the right to send a text, and call the person by mistake.

7) Add more shortcuts like the “home” button. I have my settings for “double clicking” the home button going into my phone favorites.  I’d like to see a few more options like one to take you to camera mode, and the other to the iPod.

And not even worth putting on the list since it’s so obvious, but copy&paste – pretty tough not to have that at least within an app like email.

So we’ll see what Apple has in the works, and being the gadget guy that I am – also keeping an eye on the BlackBerry Bold which should be out soon — looks pretty sweet.

Like a bunch of people that I know who do this already –  I’m not against carrying two devices 🙂