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Communications Businesses Handhelds Apple Technology Hardware

What Do You Want In iPhone 2.0? 436

Posted by Zonk from the you-know-its-coming dept.
Ian Lamont writes "The predictions about the iPhone being a bust have so far been way off the mark, but that doesn't mean the device is perfect. Besides the dependence on the AT&T Edge network and the lack of an iPhone SDK, there are a boatload of UI, software and hardware issues that should be addressed in the next-generation iPhone. Some complaints include GPS functionality, allowing iPhones to be used as hard drives, adding RSS support, and turning auto-correct into auto-complete. What would you want to see in the next generation of iPhone?"
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What Do You Want In iPhone 2.0? More

What Do You Want In iPhone 2.0?

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  • I don't want much more (Score:5, Informative)

    by blantonl ( 784786 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:06PM (#20703215) Homepage
    But this would do it for me:

    1. Native iChat functionality
    2. Ability to tether the device
    3. Some level of copy and paste.
    4. Ability to clear all SMS conversations

    That's about it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by powerpointmonkey ( 840630 )
      I'm in the UK, and for me the killer feature would be HSDPA. My 2year old HTC phone has 'propper' 3g, why was the iPhone crippled?

      • Re:I don't want much more (Score:5, Informative)

        by bstadil ( 7110 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:30PM (#20703801) Homepage
        It was not deliberately crippled. The current chips uses too much power and would make the battery life unacceptable. Google for more info and Jobs' comments on the subject. 3G with less power is scheduled for 2Q08 if I remember correctly.

        • Re:I don't want much more (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Namarrgon ( 105036 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @08:11PM (#20706791) Homepage

          That's the excuse Jobs is giving you, yes. Of course, when the iPhone inevitably gets HSDPA, the extra power usage will be glossed over ("We knew consumers wouldn't be satisfied with a mere 7 hrs talk time instead of 8, so we intentionally limited its capabilities.").

          Funny how battery life on 3G just isn't that big an issue on other phones. Personally, I'd rather have the choice, and just switch back to GSM if I need the extra life. But that's not really the Apple way, is it?

          • Re:I don't want much more (Score:5, Informative)

            by shmlco ( 594907 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @11:13PM (#20707973) Homepage
            Quotes off page one of a Google search for HTC battery life, giving 1,750,000 results...

            "The only gripe I have about this device is the poor battery performance. ... I usually need to recharge it in the late afternoon because the battery gets below 10%."

            "I'm very disappointed with the battery life on my 8525, especially compared to the 8125. ... I lost 10% on my 35 minute drive to work This included no voice calls but a fair amount of text messaging, internet use, and emails."

            "The battery on the htc tytn sucks, ... using wifi on it for 20 minutes drains 30-40 percent of the phone already! the phone's absolutely amazing but the battery life is it's downfall."

            "However when I am using the built-in wireless extensively, when I am traveling, or when I am not able to recharge at some point during the day, I have noticed a definite need for a backup power solution."

            IOW, battery life under 3G would appear to be a "bit" of an issue...

        • Barnum's Corollary (Score:3, Insightful)

          by meehawl ( 73285 )
          It was not deliberately crippled. The current chips uses too much power and would make the battery life unacceptable. Google for more info and Jobs' comments on the subject.

          The Reality Distortion Field is in full effect then I see.

      • Re:I don't want much more (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DDLKermit007 ( 911046 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @06:03PM (#20705447)
        Yeah, you can have your HDSPA. My Nokia N95 needs to be charged twice daily due to how badly 3G sucks down the battery. Jobs & them are waiting for the less power hungry 3G, and sticking with what works for now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by adisakp ( 705706 )
      I don't want much more either.... oh except for it to work better as an actual phone. Right now the max volume is ridiculously for both the speaker phone and the regular phone speaker. If you're in a crowded place, you won't be able to hear the normal speaker and if you're in your car on a noisy road, the speaker phone is barely loud enough to work. The three most important things for a multi-media phone should be:

      #1) Does it work well as a phone ?

      #2) Does it work well as a phone ?

      #3) Does it work

      • Re:I don't want much more (Score:4, Informative)

        by jtroutman ( 121577 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:47PM (#20704211)
        Everything else should be second

        Don't you mean fourth?

      • Re:I don't want much more (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Zeinfeld ( 263942 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @08:45PM (#20707041) Homepage
        #1) Does it work well as a phone ?
        #2) Does it work well as a phone ?
        #3) Does it work well as a phone ?

        Precisely and the thing that was actually amazing about the iPhone is that it is the first PDA phone that has not been a half baked POS. I have had a Blackberry, an iPaq and a Treo. They all suck. They crash, they drop connections, they are unreliable. The Treo is a vast improvement on the iPaq but its still a POS.

        The iPhone on the other hand is competently engineered and actually works. What would it take for me to buy one?

        For me to buy one for my personal use it would have to be really, really good. It would have to be good enough for me to carry a second phone around with me for a start. If it had GPS capability and I could use it to auto-navigate in the car that would make me buy it. In fact I would even buy one if there was a GPS adaptor kit available that I could fit in the car and then plug the iPhone in when I am driving the car without a GPS.

        For the phone to be acceptable as a work phone it would have to meet two particular requirements. First it has to synch with Exchange email and calendar, either natively or through a third party plug in like Goodmail. Second the email capability must provide for a 'reset' facility in the case that the phone is reported lost or stolen. Without that capability I can't use the phone for work.

        Those 'must have' items apart, I would like to be able to use my iPhone as a remote control for arbitrary devices in my home. I would also like to be able to use it as a one time password token.

        Another very nice to have feature would be to be able to use the iPhone as a VOIP phone when in range of a suitable WiFi source. I doubt that will be an option until sometime after the AT&T exclusive deal expires though.

        My list of nice to have is not actually very long, I don't want my phone to do absolutely everything. I don't even care about having a camera on my phone. But I certainly would like to see the way phones are sold change so that instead of having to buy the phone through my network provider I buy the phone and then decide what network to use it on. I want to see the phone become a commodity communications device.

        If that happens then instead of having one phone and many batteries I would be just as happy taking a second phone with me on a trip. If one phone goes flat I switch to the other. I should be able to receive calls from either my home number or my 'mobile' number when I am out of the house and the phone should be able to reconfig itself to my wife's preferences if she needs to use it when I am out.

        Instead of buying one phone per person I buy one for every room that currently has a telephone handset.

    • Re:I don't want much more (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zonk (troll) ( 1026140 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:46PM (#20704205)
      What I'd like is:

      1) Free of AT&T
      2) VOIP, used by default when WiFi is available
      3) Designed as an open platform to be modified easily (custom apps, alternative firmware, etc)

      Of course, that will never happen.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        and a pony?

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Reaperducer ( 871695 )
          A pony? Why do you want to lock yourself into some DRM-crippled equine variant? If it doesn't have full unicorn options, it's nothing less than Micro$oft in disguise.
    • needs to run OpenMoko

      (b.t.w. that means: Skype over WiFi, bluetooth mesh networks, end-to-end encryption, openfirmware, and general hackability. your phone should work for you, not against you)

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Joe Tie. ( 567096 )
        Are there any solid plans for getting skype to work on it? Closed or not, I've really come to like their service. Skype's the only thing about the neo I've found lacking in its specs. Given the nokia tablet's skype port, as well as the port to qtopia, a neo with either openmoko or qtopia would seem easy to get on their if the skype devs had any interest.

    • Re:I don't want much more (Score:5, Informative)

      by djh101010 ( 656795 ) * on Friday September 21, 2007 @05:04PM (#20704543) Homepage Journal

      But this would do it for me:

      1. Native iChat functionality
      Download "AppTapp installer" from http://iphone.nullriver.com/beta/ [nullriver.com] and install it. Then have it install "MobileChat", or one of the other native apps for chat.

      2. Ability to tether the device
      Check YouTube, some guy demo'd that during week 2.

      3. Some level of copy and paste.
      4. Ability to clear all SMS conversations

      That's about it.

      Not sure I can help with the last two, but check out all of what apptap can do. Make sure you install "summerboard" so you can scroll your main screen once you get too many icons to display on one page. You'll also want to add "community sources" so you can have more stuff to choose from. The list increases a couple times a day.

    • Re:I don't want much more (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bwoodard ( 4340 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @05:17PM (#20704779) Homepage
      5) Search through contacts by business or other methods
      6) cut/paste
      7) Categorize contacts/memos
      8) task list
      9) Scientific calculator mode
      10) Bluetooth GPS profile
      11) A2DP Bluetooth profile

  • Errr, yeah, GPS is just what it needs... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:08PM (#20703237)
    GPS functionality? How about moving to this side of Y2K when it comes to cellphone technology first? I don't know, maybe start with MMS?
    • MMS is for cavemen that don't have phones that can support email. MMS seeped up from the technical limitations of phones ages ago, as a specific standard to get images to people in a primitive time. Can't we all move on?

      Plus I can email anyone a photo, you can't necessarily MMS just anyone.

      Why not ask for video capture instead? That makes a lot more sense.
  • removable flash memory would be a start.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Romancer ( 19668 )
      Ah, but then you'd go down that slippery slope and people whould start asking for removable batteries again. :)

      Seriously though, the built in battery only really works when the device itself is a consumable, most poeple use their phones the two years and toss them before the battery goes completely flat and they get a new phone. These phones though are next to free and can be considered consumable to the masses. The higher tech devices on the other hand are not. Think people replace their PDAs and (non appl

      • Step out of the Blackberry crap if synching a new phone is a PITA for you. I just enter username and password along with servername and all my stuff shows up over my phone without the need for a tether. ActiveSync is great. All my tasks, contacts, emails get transferred. My music and work files I keep on an SD card. My laptop has a card reader so it's mighty convenient.

        You're point is well made though about removable batteries being a must along with a proper SDK. I still have reservations about a touchscr

  • Easy answer (Score:5, Funny)

    by obender ( 546976 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:09PM (#20703271)
    In iPhone2 I want OpenMoko.

    • Re:Easy answer (Score:5, Funny)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @05:29PM (#20704965)
      I suppose you want, nay, DEMAND, ogg vorbis before you will buy?

    • Open stuff is good (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Nursie ( 632944 )
      The ability to install third party apps, like just about any other smartphone EVER would be good.

      Decent (3G) connection would also go a long way, replaceable battery, SIM...

      The thing is locked down it's ridiculous. But people stillbuy them...

  • The perfect OS (Score:4, Funny)

    by gardyloo ( 512791 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:10PM (#20703283)
    Windows Me.
  • I am hoping for Exchange Activesync support. I have several clients who will switch from Windows Mobile-based phones to the iPhone in droves if this were available.

  • Really? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jvagner ( 104817 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:11PM (#20703325)
    We just went through months and months of iPhone discussions. Then we re-hashed half of those details in the way that the iPod Touch is a little disappointing. A lot of progress has been made in terms of getting unofficial 3rd party apps installed to the device. Do we really have to talk about this already?

    Here's the thing: Apple, and Steve Jobs, will do exactly what they want and nothing more. We may get iChat support, we may get video at some point, but we're probably not getting an official SSH client. We're probably not getting VOIP, even though Apple has made obvious their disdain for the cell industry.

    Once a product is launched, Apple tends to make small, incremental improvements. I don't see the iPhone 2.0 as a huge step up. In his "Steve Takes Europe" tour, the timelines for a 3G iPhone seem to be pointing more towards the end of next year, not sooner.

    Be happy with your iPhone now. I won't be getting one, but that's okay. But I *am* done thinking about the iPhone, because for me it really is short of the mark. I'm in love with the interface, the form factor, and the degree to which Apple was able to think very differently than the rest of the industry. But, Apple's self-imposed product limitations are too annoying for me. It's just not going to be the device I really want.

    • It really only needs two things (Score:5, Insightful)

      by StarKruzr ( 74642 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:21PM (#20703579) Journal
      which will enable everything else (short of 3G).

      1) SDK
      2) Uncrippled Bluetooth.

    • But, Apple's self-imposed product limitations are too annoying for me. It's just not going to be the device I really want.

      Apple's device definitely takes the Smartphone concept one step forward, and certainly Apple put no limits on certain features. So what are these sale-killing features that you want? Your post would have been much more useful if you had made it constructive, rather than leaving this "big gap" of issues you have that you don't mention.

      As for what I'd like to see in the next iPhone:

      - More storage capacity. Apple went with the "smartphone music" model for storage, where the marketing says "it plays music", bu

  • Voice dialing (Score:2, Informative)

    by sxltrex ( 198448 )
    EVERY phone made today should come with this feature. Many states have or are soon going to have laws that require using a hands-free set to talk while driving (CA's takes effect July 2008). While the iPhone does work with bluetooth headsets, requiring a driver to take their eyes off the road in order to initiate a call is inexcusable. I personally will not be purchasing an iPhone (although I do want one!) until this feature is added.
    • That's a dumb law. It encourages using a phone while driving. Something that falls under driving distracted and shouldn't be done.

  • Voice Synthesizer/Modulator (Score:5, Funny)

    by kwabbles ( 259554 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:15PM (#20703429)
    I want to be able to change my voice when I call people.

    Options must include:

    Barry White
    Liz Hurley
    Megatron
    Gary Coleman
    Jerry Lewis
    R2D2
    Bobcat Goldthwait
    Herve Villavechaize
    Smeagol (post-ring)

    I'd switch to AT&T for that.
  • Keep the hardware as it is, release an SDK integrated with XCode. It's really a shame to pay so much for hardware and not be able to play an occasional chess game.

    • A Theory (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 )
      My theory is, they'll release the SDK along with Leopard and try to make Leopard a premiere mobile development platform.

      Probably just a fantasy, but it sure would be nice.
  • One thing: I occasionally travel to Europe.

    There are two reasons I didn't get an IPhone a couple days ago:

    The first is "all need landscape entry", as mentioned in the article.

    The second is "WiFi Only mode": When out of AT&T, I don't want it to transmit data over the cell network, only on the WiFi. There is "airplane mode" (no net) and "no wifi mode", but there is no "no cell" mode that I was able to find in 15 minutes of trying with a demo unit.
    • This has been solved by one of the third party apps, called something like "NoEDGE" that has already come out. It gives you a handy quick switch to activate and deactivate EDGE.

      A lot of the other complaints I see have also already been addressed by third party native apps (no iChat? There are already some nice AIM clients out there, in active development).

      Now if Apple would just support a real SDK and get out of their absurd mentality, we'd get even better, more well-supported third party apps. Nobody I

  • Short list. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mypalmike ( 454265 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:20PM (#20703557) Homepage
    - SW: Todo list.
    - SW: WiFi SIP phone application that I can use with any SIP provider.
    - SW: Dev kit. (Partly so I can implement/port these if Apple or "official 3rd party developer" doesn't.)
    - HW: HSDPA (3G).
    - Service: Wireless sync calendar/contacts over WiFi or Edge/3G.

    I was one of the naysayers, but I ended up buying one of the $300 4GB models a couple weeks back to try it out. Now, it's "from my cold dead hands." Web browsing and email on the iPhone are simply leaps and bounds better than what I had on my Samsung Blackjack.
  • A modest-size physical keyboard with a supplementary battery would make the iPhone (and iPod touch) a very nice ultra-ultra-portable. I'm thinking something analogous to the LandWare GoType Portable Keyboard or the Stowaway Portable Keyboard that was so nice on the old Palm Pilots. An added battery could boost the iPhone life to 10-20 hours of active screen and data use for a full day's (or long-flight's) use of the machine. Sitting on the keyboard in landscape mode, the unit would work well for email, t
    • Actually there are a lot of external battery packs already for the iPod, that also work with the iPhone (though you might want to check for compatibility to be sure).

      It would be cool if they would support external Bluetooth keyboards, but really if they'd just support rotated keyboards in all applications that would be plenty good enough for me.

      What would be cool is an external keyboard that also displayed keys dynamically, but on a larger scale...

  • BlackBerry Ad (Score:2, Insightful)

    by c_sd_m ( 995261 )
    Is anyone else getting ads for the newest blackberries on this page?

    Mike Lazaridis' view on the 'essence' of the blackberry is that a core team designed and engineered every aspect of the product. The integrated full-picture approach led to the difficult to duplicate product. This seems very close to Apple's design philosophy. In the blackberries it's led to lots of proposed features tested by employees using prototypes. Which ideas were (or weren't) successful is often surprising. So we can list lots

    • You forgot to mention that Blackberries have a really good SDK and extended J2ME API's and much optional JSR support where as the I-Phone has no SDK at all. I'll keep my Blackberry until the I-Phone gets an SDK , which could of course be a while. MM
  • I want the following: Note I just bought one for my wife, so I am no expert on the iPhone but here is my list.

    1. Java - I can't believe this phone doesn't have it.
    2. Flash - It may have it, so if so then remove this one.
    3. 3G network speed
    4. Ability to buy songs on 3G network.
    5. Easy sync with Google applications - Calendar, Contacts etc. It sucks now.
    6. Todo list. Perhaps it has one but I haven't found it yet.
    7. Warranty if the phone gets damaged.
    8. Warranty if the phone gets damaged.
    9. Warranty if the p
    • Java & Flash - I've not really missed them in real use. There are few flash things that are must-haves in my book, and Java would be cool for programming but being able to write native Objective-C apps targeted to the phone would be just as good.

      3G - WiFi is faster, EDGE is OK. I've not really missed 3G and EDGE has had good coverage as far as I have seen.

      Ability to buy songs on 3G network. We'll have to see how the implementation works out, perhaps you'll be able to sample/buy but not download on ED
  • How about truly supporting multiple operating systems? Like allowing BSD, Linux, Windows, and Mac users have the same functionality. This doesn't mean that Apple has to provide the functionality, merely make it available (think ipod support for people not using iTunes.) Oh wait, this is Apple....
  • If you have some innovative ideas. Head on over to IT|Redux [itredux.com] and post them as a comment. It|Redux is the organizer of the Office2.0 Conference [o2con.com]. This year they gave everyone an Iphone and had special applicatiions made to handle the conference. Next year they will design their own device and the process is on going. They have the money and smarts to do it well.
  • If I get a convergence device like this I want it to be able to legitimately replace my iPod. Not one of those dinky little Nano things that can hold a couple of albums either, a proper iPod. Especially since they've pushed into video more heavily.

    This means that I'm going to require it meet the (modest by today's standards) requirement of at least 20 GB of space that was their top of the line 2nd Gen. Moving it up into something far more current would be nice (I barely have enough room now) but until I can

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sqrt(2) ( 786011 )
      More space would require a hard drive, and then you're going to bring the battery life down to levels that wouldn't be acceptable for a mobile phone.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Belgand ( 14099 )
        I see the point, but without more space it's not doing much better than any other phone with a small, half-assed mp3 player in it. If they really want it to be a convergence device that allows me to ditch my iPod, phone, and Palm in favor of one device they need to bring the size up.

        Maybe it's just not something that can technologically be done at the present, but that just means that they should be focusing on what they can do properly, rather than cramming in something that can't.

  • For $600, again? (Score:5, Funny)

    by RingDev ( 879105 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:26PM (#20703713) Homepage Journal
    Hell, I'm still waiting for iPhone 1.0 to give me a blow job. For another $600, iPhone two better come with a twin.

    -Rick
    1. Apple, try to remember you're a hardware company. Of all your products, the phones are arguably the ones that most desperately need to be made trustworthy. So open up the software, and don't try to lock anyone into anything (other than getting them to buy your phone).
    2. This should be done by anyone who is doing a massive (i.e. popular) deployment of smart phones: alternate connectivity. When a smart phone is talking to another smart phone, they should use a protocol that totally leaves the POTS system beh

  • lame article, fit for Digg only (Score:4, Informative)

    by Jeremy_Bee ( 1064620 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @04:28PM (#20703751)
    I was struck by how stupid most of the 15 things listed in the ComputerWorld article were and how the list seemed to be a big confabulation of every complaint we have ever heard about the iPhone. Don't we know enough already to steer clear of any article that starts with "15 things..." or "10 great ways..."? :-)

    Several of these "things to fix" are things that only third parties can accomplish, several more require entirely new hardware, and most of the rest are already slated to appear when Leopard comes out. At the very least, the article could differentiate between things requiring new hardware, and things that could be 'fixed" on the original iPhone.

    For software related issues, it's hardly worth talking about until Leopard is out as it's pretty clear at this point that the iPhone was originally intended to be released in a post-Leopard world and is not "all that it was meant to be" at the moment. For hardware related stuff, GPS, G3, better camera, and second camera are too obvious to really mention (over and over again).

    Ho-hum (yawns)
    • Actually, I found their list of 15 items pretty much all of my major complaints. Coming from someone who actually owns an iPhone and uses it daily..a lot..i've had basically all of the same complaints as those on that list. Stupid omissions and a lot of the things they could add with software updates (iChat / AIM /MSN Messenger support). One main thing missing from that list for me and thousands of other customers: Louder ear speaker volume. The iPhone is way too quiet and you can't hear people if ther
  • -Please, please, please give us iChat, even if only through WiFi (that way the carriers don't lose too much business). I'm not even considering buying one if it doesn't have iChat. I can live without videoconferencing, but it would be trivial to add, so... -Ability to install any 3rd party applications, including Skype and SIP software. Not considering buying one as long as I have to hack it to install stuff on it. -As long as it doesn't get a lot more storage (over 40 gigs), it won't replace my current (
  • Well, there's only a million billion possibilities, but some highlights:

    1) Haptic response (specifically for the keyboard)
    2) Stereo bluetooth
    3) Swappable battery
    4) Geolocation (GPS, AGPS, tower triangulation, celestial navigation for all I care)
    5) Non-AT&T
    6) Use accelerometers for more than just view rotation...maybe press and hold home button for pan and zoom
    7) Video recording

    Most of these could be (or *are being*) accomplished with:
    8) SDK for third party drivers/applications (solves 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and
  • Some of us want to do work with the thing. Not even considering to buy until it serves a purpose.
  • is the ability to SMS groups and multiple people.
    And copy and paste function would be nice along with the tilting/sideview for the email function like safari.

    Any one have any solutions for the SMS problem? I hear you can use websites, but you gotta pay. What a pain...
  • Pong. Multi-touch Pong. Two players, on one screen. No question about it.

    Also:

    1. The ability to delete a screenful of emails at once.
    2. Bluetooth headset battery level display in menu bar.
    3. Ability to turn off EDGE roaming. (This will be in 1.1.1, so I hear.)
    4. Higher resolution!! 160dpi is just enough to make me wish it were 240dpi..
    5. Voice-dialing, 3G, GPS, 32GB, WHUXGA [wikipedia.org], and WTFOMGBBQ!

    -Ben
  • 1. Voice dialing and Voice commands. Why not allow me to boost control other features of the phone by voice.
    2. Play music and or other audio through a bluetooth headset. Not just through bluetooth headphones. I wish I could listen to my sprint TV through the blue tooth headset.
    3. Not on AT&T
    4. Hight speed access.
    5. tethering by cable and bluetooth.
    6. bluetooth syncing.
    7. SDK.
    8. Allow you to use it mass storage.
    9. Allow you to use it as a display for your iPod Classic.
    10. Support UWB USB.
    11. Sync calande
  • Without the ability to build native applications for it, it's not even on my radar.
  • - HSDPS for speedy connectivity, like our fantastic wireless broadband laptop cards (way better than 3G) - 3MP or greater auto focus camera with optical zoom And the world will like these things.... - A2DP wireless bluetooth because wires are tangly poos - 10 preset zoom levels for the (Safari) web browser and other zoomable apps (on screen buttons labeled 1 to 10 to jump to your fav zoom level) - An improved on screen keyboard is not required as it won't be long before a 3rd party produces a wireless or w

  • 1. user accessible battery
    2. network independence
    3. SDK or at least a scripting language ported with access to all functions, camera sms, and even be able to script what happens if XY calls.,,,

    Then I would consider one. Why ?

    Well I went with the e65 Nokia, a very nice (I thought) business phone with a close to iPhone price tag (at least here)

    but nokia lately puts crap out

    -Nokia dropped voice dial tags (seems in all 3rd gen S60 - you cannot record them, but now there is voice recognition that does not work a
  • I want the ability to turn OFF all phone and data capabilities and use the iPhone purely as an iPod. That way, if you travel abroad, you can still use your iPhone for entertainment without getting slammed with heavy fees due to it constantly going out to check for voice mails, text messages, and so on.
  • Cut and paste?! I use it all the time on my blackberry.

    Wireless sync (unless it's already in now ;-P )

  • Since AT&T doesn't cover where I live, I guess I'd have to say compatibility with another carrier. Until then it could offer unlimited free music and movie downloads and it'd still be useless for me.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @05:06PM (#20704601)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • 1. Built-in Keynote, with VGA quality video out
    2. GPS
    3. Apple-authorized 3rd party apps
    4. Bluetooth keyboard capability
    5. Java
    6. Bluetooth stereo headset
    7. Voice dialing
    8. Flash
    9. EDGE is fine, but more speed would be nice--but only if it doesn't compromise size or battery life.

  • Better Mail.app integration

    Keep my folders and rules synced with Mail.app, and keep track of which messages I've read whether I did it on the iPhone or on my MacBook.

    Select, Delete, Copy, and Paste

    Other people have said it but this would be huge.

    Open a bookmark folder in 'tabs'

    The ability to open all of the pages (or RSS feeds) in different tabs is a great feature of the desktop Safari, and should be carried over to the iPhone's Safari.

    Consistent handling of orientation

    For some reason,

  • Few things needed to make a Palm PDA killer (Score:5, Insightful)

    by poopie ( 35416 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @07:23PM (#20706313) Journal
    As a palm faithful for years and years, it was with great reluctance that I jumped ship to the iPhone. The browser and media player on the iphone are FANTASTIC. I can't say enough good things about them. There are however, a number of problems I've had dealing with my transition from Palm to iPhone.

    - Few key *NATIVE* apps that I can't or don't want to replace with a web-based app: Let's face it, EDGE or wireless networking isn't good enough everywhere to completely depend on for frequently used apps. I want a local password manager app. I want a multiprotocol IM client. I want ability to record voice and video clips. I want a global search function. I want a draw/paint/notepad app where I can draw things like I do on cocktail napkins. I want a *REAL* todo app that ties into my calendar. I really miss my car maintenance/gas mileage app.

    - mail app. Make email able to open any audio/video attachments with "itunes" multimedia player. Give me per-email account config options for # of messages to download, how many to keep. How about download and keep all messages until free ram less than X? Need ability to search email subject, to:, and email body.

    - Integration features: I want my phone to "guess" my location based on cell towers, wifi access points and show a 'you are here' in Google Maps. I want to be able to select text from a webpage, and have the option of emailing the text with a link to source page to anyone in my address book. I want to be able to enter a phone number in the "location" field for a meeting and be able to touch the number on a meeting reminder and have the iphone dial my meeting number.

    - Sync: Please oh please, let me sync my calendar with Google Calendar and Google contacts - I'd like to be able to do it wired or wirelessly. Add support in iTunes for syncing with Mozilla Sunbird. Add support for syncing with multiple calendar sources that have different sync locations and rules -- let my sync my work calendar and have events show up in red. Let me sync my personal calendar and have events show up in blue. Let me be able to toggle viewing my wife's personal calendar on and off as I wish and have it show up in a different color. Let me schedule events for multiple calendars. Please also add support for syncing with Palm Desktop. There aren't many good free PIMs on Windows. Outlook blows. Not everyone or every company uses Exchange. I wasted days trying to get 10 years of Palm data into outlook and into my iPhone. In the end, I only got about 80% of it over. That's a tragedy -- Apple should make it trivial for a Palm user to switch to iPhone with all their data.

    - Browser: Flash, Flash, Flash... oh and bluetooth printing support

    - Remote access: If you don't open up the iPhone, at least give us a multipurpose remote access app. I want to choose from the following options: 1) text-based ssh console, 2) RDP client that support multi-touch screen scaling and screen tilting, 3) VNC client that supports multi-touch screen scaling and positioning

    - Hardware enhancements: Bluetooth - give me a tiny, foldable bluetooth keyboard and iphone stand that pairs with the iPhone so I can put it on the desk and type faster. Keyboard folded over should be about same size as iphone. Give us Stereo Bluetooth support and sell a stereo bluetooth headset with a MIC for phone use too (We hate wires). Keep larger flash drive capacities coming. Keyboard slider might make an interesting device - I won't be typing any novels on my current iPhone.

    - Provide a *FREE* SDK for 3rd party development. Don't force me to jump ship to a gphone in 1 year. Let me hack my iPhone without worrying about Apple updates needing me to "reformat" my device and resync all my data. Come on, now!

    - iTunes - let me grab new podcasts wireless and sync up info when I sync with itunes

    Did I mention native, multiprotocol IM client? Oh, well let me mention it again. Let me specify my own XMPP/jabber servers too so I can connect with my corporate IM servers.

    Lastly, one app I re

  • Some simple UI wishes... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lelitsch ( 31136 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @07:46PM (#20706541)
    (1) Make the horizontal keyboard available for every application, not just Safari.
    (2) Copy notes between Mac/PC and the iPhone
    (3) Make locations in Google Maps save able
    (4) Song controls in CoverFlow
    (5) On-off switch for auto-correction. It's really good for English, but try to type a French/German/Italian message. Oh, yeah, international keyboards. Some of us are fluent in more than one language.

    Other than that, kick AT&T to offer a non-extortionist international data plan.

  • IRdA (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SethJohnson ( 112166 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @08:18PM (#20706843) Homepage Journal


    Perhaps a not-so-expensive feature would be IRdA like the palm has. Then you could run it as a universal TV remote control and also car door unlocker. Oh, if they could partner with the auto companies to have it open your car door and also start your car, well that would be cool. Speaking of cars, if they could stream music from the phone to the car stereo like iTunes can with the Airport Express/Extreme, that would be helpful in getting rid of all these horrible FM transmitter gizmos that always suffer conflicts with existing stations.

    Seth

  • my list (Score:3, Interesting)

    by josepha48 ( 13953 ) on Friday September 21, 2007 @10:25PM (#20707691) Journal
    1) installable applications and a dev sdk; 2) todo list; 3) keyboard should be rotatable like the images; 4) option to turn off the screen rotation, imagine turning the camera on its side and taking a photo, then when you try to review the photo; 5) large, medium and small options for screens so that people have a choice; 6) works on other networks like sprint, verizon and t-mobile ( usa ); 7) higher resolution camera ( 2mp is good, but next year it will be standard ); I can't think of anything else right now..

  • Let's start... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Phroggy ( 441 ) <slashdot3@NOsPaM.phroggy.com> on Saturday September 22, 2007 @02:05AM (#20708767) Homepage
    ...with a list of some of the features of my current phone, a Motorola v551. It's not a complete piece of crap, but it's certainly not high end or anything. The interface is terrible; Motorola's UI designers are apparently completely incompetent. Slashdotters complain about EDGE, but this phone doesn't even support EDGE; I get 32kbps down and 16kbps up on GPRS. So right there, there's two things the iPhone would do better.

    But here's some of the things my crappy old phone can do, that the iPhone can't:

    • tethering via BlueTooth
    • syncing via BlueTooth
    • voice dialing
    • MP3 ring tones, alarms, etc.
    • record videos, and send them to others via MMS or e-mail, or transfer them (or photos, or ring tones) to my computer via BlueTooth
    • AIM client
    • Install and play third-party games
    • Swap batteries when I'm away from a power source for awhile


    I shouldn't have to give up these features. Tethering (the ability to connect to the Internet from my laptop through the phone) is the dealbreaker; I use that all the time. I can understand the battery issue, and I should be able to work around it by connecting an external battery pack (I've seen these for other phones; I don't know if one is available for the iPhone yet, but it's not exactly complicated).

    Beyond that? I'm sure 3G is coming. GPS would be nice, so I don't have to enter my current location when using Google Maps, especially after I've made a wrong turn and I don't really know where I am. Copy and paste would be helpful. And I really desperately want an SSH client.

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