With the immanent announcement of Apple’s newer iPhone next Monday, I’ve been thinking about what they could improve upon in the next release.
The bonus about the new iPhone is that it brings with it a new iPhone OS which will be available to all older iPhones. That’s great news, but I somehow expect that older iPhone users won’t be getting everything for free.
I also wonder about what sort of upgrade options older users will have. My contract will last for another year; I’m not exactly in a rush to spend that kind of money on a phone again until that time, but I’m sure there are some who would love to have the new model right away… will there be a fair route for them to upgrade, without costing them an arm, leg and testicle?
The obvious stuff
- Recording movies — Even at a low resolution for the old phones, this is a feature I really do miss. It’s a shame they haven’t gotten a move on and added it by now
- Mailing on pictures from the Internet — I miss this every now and again. I’m sure it’s something Apple could come up with an adequate interface for doing.
- Copying/pasting text — There are many possible ways for Apple to implement this as far as the user interface is concerned… but I’m suspicious as to how many of them are any good. Hopefully they’ve been investigating and testing different methods and have pinpointed one they’re happy with by now.
- Full HTML notes which sync with Mail or Stickies — At the moment, you can make notes on the iPhone which aren’t viewable on the Mac, or you can make them on the Mac but not edit them on the iPhone. There must be a better solution…
- A better calculator! — Some scientific and programmer options would be lush.
- More events from iPhoto — It’s not fair that you can only sync 20 events to the iPhone. I want more than that, but not all of my events…
The more creative stuff
- 3G — It seems to be clear that the new iPhone will have 3G capability. This is good news in the UK, where 3G coverage is likely to be more complete than EDGE coverage. EDGE coverage has been improving vastly, but we’ve not even had it here for a year, yet. 3G, on the other hand, has been here for years.
- GPS — I hear that GPS chips are a little rubbish at the moment; they take a while to get a lock on, and they’re yet another drain on the precious mobile battery. But what excites me about GPS is the automatic geotagging of pictures I take, along with the reassurance I’ll always be able to pinpoint my location (very handy when you’re in London and you’re not a Londoner…)
Bluetooth syncing — Apple have been dishing out Macs with inbuilt Bluetooth as standard for yonks. The iPhone must have the most underused Bluetooth chip going. This one seems entirely obvious to me: light data such as your contacts, calendar and bookmarks are ideal candidates for Bluetooth syncing. Yet I can see Apple considering this to be one thing too many to work on, so I expect they’ll introduce syncing over the Internet instead.- Bluetooth liberation — Thinking about Bluetooth on the iPhone leads you to quickly realise how little it’s used. Yet Bluetooth can actually be quite a fun technology. Hopefully they’ll liberate it’s API to developers and we’ll see some fun apps using it. At the very least, I’d like to be able to send JPEGs to other phones.
- Better interaction with other phones — I can’t send picture messages to anyone else. Sure, I can email them with a much better JPEG image, but a lot of people I know don’t have email addresses…
- An amazing remote… — Perhaps especially with Bluetooth, the iPhone has the ability to be an amazing remote control… and very interactive one, too, thanks to the screen. There are already some apps which accomplish this, but it’d be nice to see the Apple polish in effect.