A Novel Feature Idea for iOS

iOS should present a default device owner’s avatar image to any apps that request one.

Getting started on a new social media service – or on the majority of apps which increasingly require an initial login to create a presence within the app’s community – is now a pretty efficient and streamlined process. If you don’t want to login with your Facebook or Twitter identity [1] then you just need to provide a user name and a password (sometimes an email is not even needed any more) and you’re all set. You get a generic avatar icon to speed your way into the service: completing your profile by adding a photo and any other information can happen at any time later. Because including the photo/avatar is not part of that initial on-ramp work flow you can see a lot of default avatars in the early stages of community building.



In the last year I have started using the same head shot icon across all the social media. (Currently it is my eight-bit alter ego from some ZXSpectrum-themed alternate universe.) I think it’s a useful idea to present a standardised visual to the various audiences. That must be my background in corporate identity coming through...

It strikes me that it would be a useful feature in iOS if I could set an image file as my default avatar for all new social media services, and more broadly all of those apps that require a login and that create a presence for users.

I imagine most people don't store a dedicated image file within their Camera Roll for such a purpose. Which is the hack you need to do at present. Surely the iOS can help out here.

The personalised owner’s entry in Contacts.app seems to be the most obvious starting point within the current system. I would add an option in the edit pane for the user’s personalised head shot that then presented this image as a default avatar for any apps that requested one. An auto-complete for avatar images if you will. Then when setting up relevant apps the iOS could present a dialogue box with a “Use This Photo” option to securely evoke the default image without exposing any confidential information and a “Take Photo” option to evoke the camera.

Finally, I have never been convinced with the current iOS configuration of treating your own information as just another entry within Contacts.app. There is a logic and simplicity to this approach in one sense, but I can envisage some kind of centralised, dedicated and enhanced ‘My Information’ or ‘My Identity’ section in Settings that would allow for increasing connectivity and granular access of the iPhone owner’s information with the various clouds and super-platforms. Today our phones primarily identify us and accredit us to services like social media, but in the future they will allow us to pay for goods and services, travel on public transport, even unlock our front doors etc. How our phones handle identity is going to become increasingly important.

[1] Thinking about this further, now that Twitter is so tightly integrated into iOS perhaps Apple really do want us to adopt that as our identification layer for apps. If I were to set up all apps using my Twitter accreditation in future, I wouldn’t need a dedicated avatar image to be served by the OS. But, down the line, I don’t see myself logging-in to my secure digital wallet or my home security system with my Twitter credentials. Do you?