An iPhone API I’d like to see

Just tal­king about the iPho­ne, the­re is an API that I’d like to see and I’m sure many appli­ca­ti­ons would bene­fit from: A down­load mana­ger.  I ima­gi­ne that an app could regis­ter to pull the con­tent of a spe­ci­fic URL or the ans­wer from a Web Ser­vice at a spe­ci­fied time or at spe­ci­fied inter­vals, and then the ans­wers or most recent ans­wer is rea­dy for con­sump­ti­on when the app is star­ted by the user.

Ide­al­ly, this would inte­gra­te with iTu­nes so that when syn­cing the pho­ne, all the data-hun­gry apps get their mouths fed and are pro­vi­ded with the last ver­si­on of the data they’­re inte­res­ted in.  What I have in mind are news-pluck­ing appli­ca­ti­ons like All Things Digi­tal or Bloom­berg, or the TV sche­du­le apps – or many of the other apps that you start, then wait to have their con­tent pul­led, and only then con­ti­nue to use.  The basic thing they do is simp­le: They all get their data in first.  And I pre­su­me many, many of them in one or the other kind of XML application.

Man, would that impro­ve my user expe­ri­ence of the iPhone.