3 Needed Tech & Media Updates

I try not to complain (too much) but recently, I can’t help but wonder why developers didn’t include the following (and obvious, in my opinion) features:

1. @replies via SMS: Over the past seven days, I have been experimenting with the original SMS method of tweeting. After a solid week of SMS tweeting, I feel that I have become somewhat proficient. However, there is one flaw: I can not view my @replies and it is driving me nuts! The only way to view @replies is if you chose to follow a user in your SMS timeline and you see that that user has tweeted at you. Other than that, DM is the only way to contact a SMS tweeter. And seriously, who DMs somebody unless you’re into #twitterafterdark. 

2. Exporting Facebook photo albums: So to make up for my lack of time spent on Twitter, Echofon, and TweetDeck this past week, I decided to update my privacy settings on Facebook. Out of my 67 photo albums (when did I get so many??), I chose to keep my travel albums viewable by everyone. Essentially, I’m using Facebook as a storage unit for the other 4,000 pictures from college. So, my frustration is this: I can’t export my Facebook photo albums onto my computer. I’m sure it could be done… one photo at a time. But that’d be a pain in the you-know-where.

3. Automatic sourcing from iBooks to iWork: I didn’t order an iPad because my 2nd generation MacBook still runs perfectly fine. But after playing with it for an hour (I know, I’m a hog) at the Apple store last weekend, I so want one. As a Communications student, I write a lot and I could see the iWork software combined with the iBooks app as being extremely useful. As I was playing around with iBooks, I had an idea: there needs to be automatic sourcing from iBooks to iWork. What I mean is, if I copy a phrase from a book or textbook in iBooks and I paste the selection into my document on iWork, I want my iPad to automatically source the reference in the correct MLA/APA format. Computers do everything else, why can’t they source my papers, too?

Why haven’t the developers addressed these issues? If you know ANY way around these problems, please comment!

Tags: #twitterafterdark, Facebook, iBooks, iPad, iWork, privacy, SMS, sourcing, Twitter