Despite hundreds of thousands of iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps in the App Store, there are still some huge gaps, and major apps missing from the big players, including Apple themselves, Adobe, Google, Microsoft, and BlackBerry maker RIM. Some of the best known software on the market simply isn't available for iOS. We're hoping that changes in 2011, and after the break are the apps we're hoping help make the change!

Apple: Files

I wrote at length about the need for a Finder app and amended it to a Files app in 2010 and now, at the beginning of 2011, it still tops my list for new iPhone and iPad apps I want from Apple. The reason is simple: document access on iOS as it currently stands is a nightmare. Apple's own iDisk and third parties like DropBox and Box.net offer functionality that really should be native and as off-line as it is on. Again, the Photo app is the model. It preserves the sandbox by providing a central repository for files, and allows them to easily be opened via the Picker in any other app. What Photos does or images and video, Files should do for documents (and both should do via Safari so we can upload to the web, just saying...). Apple, make it happen.

Also want:

• iWork for iPhone. We have it for iPad, we've seen it teased for iPhone, it can't possibly not be released in 2011.
• iPhoto for iOS. Create albums, move photos between them, do basic editing like crop and red-eye removal, and sync selected photos. We got iMovie for iPhone (and hopefully for iPad 2 soon), give us iPhoto.

Adobe: Flash Player

For years people have been angry at Apple for the lack of Flash support. And that's ridiculous. It's entirely Adobe's fault for coasting on shoddy code for the last five years and only delivering a workable mobile Flash, in beta, near the end of 2010. But deliver it they have. It's not great; I've disabled it on my Nexus One, but Adobe is working on it fearfully hard, and Google and Palm and RIM have chosen to support it (and in so doing slowed the switch to HTML 5. Jerks.), so it'll get good enough. I don't think Apple would allow a Flash plugin like on other devices -- it's a security risk and a user experience hit -- but a Flash Player? Apple could work with Adobe to create a Flash app much like the YouTube app. A single app that, if it detects Flash video anywhere else on the device, especially Safari, it can take the handoff and play it in its own little, highly optimized, hopefully hardware accelerated, Flash-cookie-free sandbox. (Much how the QuickTime player handles H.264 video). It's not 2007 anymore, and 2011 isn't Flash free, so it's time to bite the bullet on this one.

Also want:

• Creative Suite Viewer That I can view AutoCad docs on my iPhone and iPad and not Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign is a disgrace. Get on that, Adobe!

Google: Gmail

I don't want to come off as greedy, since my mind is still blown by getting Google Voice and Google Latitude in 2010, but in 2011 I really, truly would like a native Gmail app that can handle things like attaching pictures and video (and Files.app, right Apple?). In a perfect world Google would have made Gmail more compatible with other mail systems, seamlessly handling labels as folders and stars as flags. In a perfect world, Apple would actually handle things like stars/flags in the built-in Mail app. But keeping with the pragmatic theme of this post, and acknowledging how annoying separate email apps are on Android, I'd still like a native Gmail app for iPhone and iPad. If it gets decent push notifications built in, like the Google Mobile app, I won't even have to worry about iOS not having a "set default mail client" setting.

Also want:

• Google Navigation When Android got this for free we heard rumors iPhone would be getting it as well. Then not. Then again. Then not again. Google, just do it.

(If you could somehow get Apple to add those newfangled vector graphics to the Google-powered, built-in Maps app, we'd appreciate that as well).

Microsoft: Office

Documents to Go is great. QuickOffice is grand. Even Google Docs is usable over the web. But Microsoft, baby (can I call you baby?) none of those are Office. Sure, Office is a beast of a suite, as frustrating as it is fantastic, but it's the standard and it belongs on iPhone and iPad. You've built it for Windows Mobile. You've built it for Windows Phone. You've even built it for Mac and are working on it for Nokia. You know how to do Apple and you know how to do mobile, so it's time to do Mobile Apple. Sure you lose a differentiator for your own OS, but you had no problem doing that for Exchange, did you? Microsoft, stop teasing us and make 2011 the year of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for iPhone and iPad. Okay?

Also want:

• Outlook ActiveSync is okay but for hard core Exchange users a native Outlook app is every bit as important as a native Gmail app is to Googlers. Let's get that sync'ed.
• Zune Pass Apple hasn't done subscription music yet but they have sold a gazillion iOS devices. Get those users on Zune Pass before iTunes.com launches.

RIM: BlackBerry Connect

CrackBerry Kevin already laid out why, in a post Kik-world, RIM would be better off owning the cross-platform instant messaging space than sitting on the sidelines while some third-party service breaks the crack off from the berry, so I'll just echo his sentiments here. BlackBerry Connect used to bring BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) to other devices; it could do the same again. Do I expect to see Big Mike bound across a WWDC stage any time soon? No, but Apple did announce a Microsoft ActiveSync license at the iOS 2 event in 2008, so announcing a BlackBerry Connect license in 2011 wouldn't be unprecedented.

Also want:

• BrickBreaker. Kidding! Give me BBM and I'm good.

Your picks?

Those the top 5 big name apps I'd like to see come to iPhone and iPad in 2011. What are yours? (Besides Facebook for iPad, of course!)

Every WWDC keynote we've joked that Mike Lazaridis from BlackBerry maker RIM would surprise everyone by joining Steve Jobs on stage to announce BlackBerry Connect and BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) for iPhone. Then we laugh and marvel out our new copy and paste, multitasking, or whatever Apple chooses to invent that year.

Our sibling site CrackBerry.com has put the whole BBM on iOS (and every other platform) issue right back on their front page, however, with Kevin asking the question:

So should RIM do it? Personally, I think they should. I get the reasons why they wouldn't. RIM makes money from selling smartphones, and right now BlackBerry Messenger is one of those hooks that keeps people on BlackBerry and actually attracts some people to BlackBerry (I've heard stories from carrier reps where individuals walk into the store and ask for the phone that does BBM). But I don't think this reasoning holds up long-term. As soon as a cross-platform BBM-style client emerges in the smartphone space and attains critical mass (ie. Kik or another), even if not as fully-featured as BlackBerry Messenger the hook of BBM starts to diminish. If it's inevitable that a cross-platform BBM alternative is going to emerge down the road, is it not better for RIM to be the ones who put it out? There are some iPhone owners out there who no matter what are never going to own a BlackBerry (Apple fanboys!), but I bet those same people would rock BlackBerry Messenger on their iPhone.

I agree with Kevin. Look at what licensing ActiveSync has done for Microsoft. I'd prefer to a non-proprietary protocol -- I like that I can switch from iPhone to Android, Windows to Mac, Outlook to Mail.app and my email stays my email -- but I use Twitter and that's the same model BBM could take.

What do you think? Should BBM be available on iPhone? Head on over to CrackBerry.com's poll and let your vote be heard, then come back here and tell us why or why not.

It's WWDC 2009. Steve or Phil or Scott or Joz or whomever is handling the heavy lifting for the iPhone 3.0 section and release-date announcement smiles and says -- "There's one more thing...

"Last year we showed you Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync support. Nobody expected it, but we were blown away by the reception. This year, we're announcing BlackBerry Connect support for the iPhone. With this, not only can you chat with your team over BlackBerry Messenger, but you can push data right from your Corporate BES. And to tell us more about it, ladies and gentlemen, here's CrackBerry Kevin the Co-CEO of Research in Motion--"

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? It does to me. I know it does to Kevin. No way in Hull (it's in Ontario -- look it up!) this happens, right? It's not like Apple would ever do business with a competitor such as RIM... or Microsoft... or Google...

Would Apple even want BlackBerry Connect -- a software layer that emulates varying amounts of BlackBerry functionality on other devices like Symbian, Palm, or Windows Mobile -- on the iPhone? They've certainly got some degree of business integration now with the aforementioned Microsoft ActiveSync. And from RIM's side, while they have licensed BlackBerry Connect in the past, it's not like they've been putting any emphasis on it in the present, have they?

Aside from letting iPhone users instachat more seamlessly with BlackBerry users -- dogs and cats living together, as Dieter would say -- is there anything really in it for consumers either? It wouldn't give the iPhone a keyboard or the BlackBerry the ability to run more than a handful of tiny, on-memory apps. And, instead of breaking down more proprietary communication protocols, it would just be extending PIN the way it's already extended ActiveSync.

Still, crazier things have happened. What if this did? Would you want it?