In Depth: 8 projects we'd like to see Apple do right

We all have our hopes, aspirations and dreams. Maybe Jobs and co could make these ones come true. How about it, Steve?1. Ping 2You know it, we know it. Ping, as seen in iTunes 10, sucks. We want you to throw it open to your rivals so we can integrate stuff like our Last.fm playlists and Facebook friends and we want them to be easy to find without having send invites using Mail or trying to search for them manually. It'd be really handy if it recognised our existing music libraries, not just the stuff we've bought from the iTunes Store. That's not such a big ask, is it?2. iPhone 5It's all very well pointing your finger at your rivals and castigating them for the performance of their smartphone antennas. But we expect Apple to be better than that. Next time do a proper job, put function over form for once and give us the smartphone we deserve. We'll thank you for it by flashing our plastic / selling our kids for scientific experiments for the next one. At the very least sell us a foot long rubbery antenna we can screw into the top. Oh, and user replaceable batteries, pleeeeassee? You'll have to speak up, I'm using an iPhone 4. Yes, Apple's upgraded my bumper to an anechoic chamber. No, it's gone again. Useless thing3. iLife 11 / iWork 11We know it come free with all new Macs and costs a pittance to everyone else, but iLife could really do with an update. Roll Aperture into iPhoto, sort iMovie out so you don't need a degree in metaphysical brain surgery to figure out how to use it and turn iWeb into a proper Wordpress / RapidWeaver rival that isn't limited to MobileMe subscribers and doesn't make you want to cry on the shoulder of the nearest SEO expert. Anything else? GarageBand. Can you sort it so all the records in the charts don't sound like they were made using GarageBand? As for iWork 11, Pages and Keynote we can live with, but Numbers? We don't know where to start. Or how. A little help?4. MobileMeOne more thing: please make it good and worth our hard-earned cash. The end. It looks nice and everything, but we'd really, really wish MobileMe had a bit more oomph. And didn't cost quite so much. There are free plenty of alternatives, you know5. Mac OS X 10.7Firstly, ditch the big cat metaphors and plump for something properly inspiring. Like the names of X Factor winners. Our lords and masters in the banking industry. Or the Dark Lords of the Sith. Secondly, we want a proper Minority Report-ish, fingers-in-the air style holographic user interface that makes wooshing noises (a bit the like the aeroplane noise when you send an email in Mail, but cooler) and a Finder that doesn't suck. We'd settle for a Finder that doesn't suck. Your call. Mac OS X: the next version has to be in holographic 3D6. Apple TV 3 / 4 / 5, whateverWe know what you're trying to do and we commend you for it. But it really doesn't have to be that hard. Take a big hard disk, a Blu-ray player / recorder, some PVR functionality and a Freeview HD tuner, stick it in and beautiful box and we'll buy it in droves. Team it with your expertise in UI interfaces and make it cheap and simple enough for our grannies to use it. They'll be the first ones to queue up for one. Especially if we tell lie and tell them they're getting a free sample of Werther's Originals or something.7. An Apple credit card / customer loyalty schemeEvery time we visit either a physical or virtual store and spend money, we gets points that turn into pounds that can go towards our next Apple purchase. We'll be locked into buying ever more stuff from you, but that's OK because we're fanbois and we just can't help ourselves. You could even offer exclusive competitions and prizes. Like a night out with worldwide marketing VP Phil Schiller. Second prize, two nights out? Hello Sir. New Mac Pro, is it? Have you tried our new Apple Credit Card? You'll get 1 point for every thousand pounds you spend. And we'll charge you punitive rates of interest. You'll sign? Lovely8. Unbundle iOSWe know you don't want to. We know it's about the synergy between the hardware and the software, yada, yada, yada. We don't care. Don't make the mistake you made last time around in the 1980s and let Microsoft or Google get all the glory. You'll make a mint and anyone who uses anything from a Mac Pro to a cash machine will benefit. Heck, you could even use PDQ terminals with an iOS UI in your shops. How cool would that be?Related StoriesReview: Apple iMac 27-inch SSDiPhone and iPad apps more popular than TV and sportIn Depth: iPad 2 rumours: What you need to knowApple has trademarked 'There's An App For That'Apple 'Back to the Mac' event scheduled for 20th OctoberAfter school activities