Every year, Apple unveils the latest version of iOS with the kind of polish and fanfare you’d expect from one of the biggest tech companies on the planet.
And this year is no different, with WWDC 2026 playing host not only to the reveal of iOS 27 but also to the much-anticipated Siri AI, finally bringing GenAI smarts to iPhone that can compete with the Android competition.
It’s undoubtedly a big update for Apple, but for all the attention it’s paying to flashy new AI-powered features, some of the most frustrating parts of the iPhone experience still feel stubbornly untouched – elements that, in places, I’ve been complaining about for nearly a decade.
So yes, iOS 27 might be a huge upgrade – but as ever, I’m still waiting for Apple to fix the obvious stuff.
Something needs to be done about app badges
I’m going to say it; I absolutely detest app badges on iPhone.
Those big, bright buttons with numbers on them cause nothing but added stress, insinuating there’s something I need to do or see, especially when badges on multiple apps slowly take over my home screen and folders. The FOMO instantly kicks in, as annoying as it is.
It’s also very distracting when I unlock my phone to do something specifically. If I see a little ‘1’ on the WhatsApp app, I’m going to open it, see who has sent me a message, and likely get sidetracked. It’s a basic psychological trick – one that I want to opt out of.
The problem? You can only disable badges on an app-by-app basis, and with hundreds of apps on my iPhone, that’d take hours. Why isn’t there an option to globally disable badges? It has been available on most Android skins for years now, after all.
In fact, I want Apple to go even further and basically just copy how Android handles notifications and badges because, well, it just makes a lot of sense. On Android, notifications in the notification shade are directly tied to app badges, so if you decide a notification is unworthy of your time and attention and clear it from the shade, the associated app badge also disappears.
On iPhone, clearing a notification won’t remove the badge – the only way to clear it is to open the app and read the message or notification that was delivered.
In an age when we’re all becoming more conscious of mindlessly scrolling through apps, visual distractions like this need to get in the sea.
But hey, at least Siri can write texts for you now, right?
Why doesn’t Apple support Wi-Fi Direct?
Just under a decade ago, I managed to get my hands on Snapchat’s then-brand-new Spectacles – a pair of sunglasses with a built-in camera and mic to capture POV-style snaps and videos exclusively for Snapchat. Yes, Snap really was ahead of its time in that regard; it walked so Meta could run.
Anyway, after excitedly snapping photos and videos on an outing in Central London, I opened my iPhone 7 Plus to import and share them on my story. The problem? Apple didn’t support Wi-Fi Direct, which would let the phone and the glasses pair directly via Wi-Fi and provide much faster data transfer speeds.
Instead, I had to connect via Bluetooth and deal with slow speeds, or manually connect to the glasses’ Wi-Fi network in my iPhone’s Settings app.
As a result, it was much better as an Android accessory than an iPhone one, with Wi-Fi Direct support allowing for rapid transfer – and it’d also happen in the background without me triggering it myself.
What’s crazy about this is that, 10 years later, Apple still doesn’t support Wi-Fi Direct – and considering how many camera-equipped devices we use these days, from drones to action cameras and gimbal cameras to the aforementioned camera-enabled smart specs, that’s pretty unbelievable.
Instead, iOS users continue to rely on the much slower Bluetooth transfer speeds for moving videos between devices wirelessly – and I can’t help but wonder, why?
But hey, at least Siri can tell you what you’re looking at in iOS 27, right?
Actually, it’s more than Wi-Fi Direct – it’s Wi-Fi in general
You know what, it’s not just the lack of Wi-Fi Direct support that irks me on the iPhone – it’s the Wi-Fi experience in general.
Apple spent a good few minutes patting itself on the back at WWDC, claiming that it’d fixed one of the biggest headaches of cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity – the time it takes to jump between the two. I mean, that’s great and all, but I wouldn’t have put that very high on my list of complaints.
What I would’ve loved Apple to fix instead was the iPhone’s handling of mesh Wi-Fi networks, because right now it’s pretty bad. I’ve had a couple of mesh Wi-Fi systems in my home over the past few years, and none of them have played well with any model of iPhone I’ve used – including the most recent iPhone 17 Pro.
When I move from one area of the home to another that requires a hop from one Wi-Fi node to another, there’s a period of time – sometimes close to a minute – when my iPhone swears it’s connected to full-signal Wi-Fi but doesn’t actually work.
It’s an absolute headache compared to using an Android where mesh Wi-Fi networks work as expected, hopping between nodes without a loss in connectivity. It’s easily one of the main reasons why I keep flitting between iPhone and Android for daily use – a small problem, yes, but one that gets very annoying, very quickly.
But hey, at least you can get Siri to make Shortcuts for you in iOS 27, right?
Sorry Apple, but some apps do need to run in the background
Apple handles background app usage in a completely different way than Android – while background apps can run on Android, those on iPhone are essentially frozen when not in active use to conserve battery.
It’s likely the reason why some people think that closing background iPhone apps will save battery life – when in reality, it’s the opposite, using more CPU power to totally re-open an app than would be used in its frozen state. But I digress.
While I do like Apple’s approach to background app use, as it doesn’t require the same manual management as on Android, it does make using accessories (particularly those not made by Apple) a bit of a headache.
Take my Fitbit Air for example; on Android, it’ll automatically sync with the Google Health app in the background and send me alerts and insights throughout the day, regardless of whether I’ve opened it or not. On iPhone? I have to open the app and manually sync the wearable before I can see what’s going on with my health and fitness.
It also applies to smart glasses, as I hinted at earlier; as well as using Wi-Fi Direct, camera-connected apps can also automatically import images and videos on Android – something you simply can’t do on iOS.
If Apple added a little button or a toggle to the multitasking menu to enable always-on background use, that’d be great – but that’s not on the roster for the big software update.
But hey, at least you can get Siri to let you know when websites change in iOS 27, right?
These aren’t exactly new complaints either
As you can probably tell, these aren’t complaints that have suddenly emerged with iOS 26; they’re long-standing flaws in iOS that chip away at the overall experience on offer, no matter how polished the rest of the software might look.
It’s great that Apple is finally doing a better job of matching the Android competition in the ever-competitive GenAI market, but really, it needs to put just as much effort into fixing these lingering usability issues and refining the core experience.
But hey, at least Siri looks better in iOS 27, right?
