Normally, Apple usually holds an event in late March or early April to give developers a preview of the next major release of iOS — the operating system for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This year, Apple expected to release iOS 5 a little later than usual. Instead of an event in April, the company is likely to give a preview at this year's WWDC in June.

Right before Apple holds these software events, people tend to make their wish list for what new features they'd like to see in the upcoming version of iOS. Something that has been widely discussed recently is a change of the lock screen. As of now, if you attempt to unlock your iDevice, you are greeted with a rather straightforward lock screen. The screen includes the time, date, and slide-to-unlock mechanism. That's it. A lot of critics would really like to see information added to this screen such as missed calls, missed mail, calendar events, etc.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disagree with these critics. Would this information on the lock screen be useful? Sure. Would it contradict the purpose of a lock screen? Somewhat. If you're someone like me that sets a password for your iPhone or iPad, it's probably to add an extra layer of security on your device. This means that I don't want anyone knowing my business, and wouldn't all that extra information on the lock screen let unwanted users of my device know my business?

Plus, all that information isn't even necessary if you think about it. Let's say you check your lock screen and find that you have two new voicemails. You then proceed to unlock the device, head over to the Phone app, and listen to those voicemails. You'd follow the exact same process if that information wasn't presented on the lock screen, because you'd just see the badge on the Phone app, tap it, and listen to the voicemails.

I think every year people find something new to complain about on iOS just so we can get to this concept that iOS will eventually be perfected. Another example of this would be the notification system in iOS. I have to agree that it's time for a change, but nobody complained about it up until this year. Now, whenever you are reading or listening to anything about iOS it's probably the number one complaint. Why? It was never an issue before and now suddenly everyone is fed up? I'm not buying it.

No one really what we're going to be complaining about next year for the release of iOS 6, but you can bet it's probably going to be something we're all quiet about now.

Article first published as Unnecessary Complaints About the iOS Lock Screen on Technorati.