Why doesn’t the iPhone allow you to customize the vibration sequence based on the context of the notification? This has been bugging me for awhile, but thanks to Eduardo Ortiz and Diego Pulido I’m bugged enough by it now to write about it. During a standard work day, my phone stays in the silent mode more often than not. Between SMS message, Boxcar Notifications, and emails my phone buzzes a lot. Now I’m like many people and I keep my personal email open all day so I can easily switch it when I need to. Feeling an email “buzz” come from my leg would tell me to check this tab rather than pull out my phone. The more I think about this type of use, the more I want this feature.
Thinking back, even my pager from high school had the ability to customize its vibration. Granted, the pager only had one function so it didn’t need do any logic to determine which vibration sequence to use, but still the ability was there. With an advanced device like the iPhone, it should be easier than pie to put some logic around what sequence the vibration uses based on what context is being called. This capability has to present already, as Apps have the ability to use the vibration of the phone in a variety of ways. Apple, if you’re listening (which I know you’re not) this would be nice to see in 4.x version of the iPhone OS.
What are some ways this type of contextual interaction could help you?