Future iPhones: what counts as "innovation"?

[amarcus]

I've been wanting to make a thread like this for some time... What features do you think Apple could add to future iPhones that would deserve to be called innovative?

Please keep your suggestions realistic. To start the ball rolling heres my list:

• Haptic touchscreen. Your screen would no longer feel like ordinary glass - you would be able to feel different textures. Think of being able to feel UI controls and what would happen when developers are allowed to experiment.
• Waterproof coating. Gone are the days of worrying about rain damage, sweat damage when exercising, dropping your phone in the toilet etc. Imagine how much fun it could be to take your phone for some underwater pictures.
• Light-field camera. Refocusing pictures and changing perspective would be just plain awesome in a phone. I can certainly see why Jobs was so interested in Lytro.
• Fingerprint sensor. I know this is almost definitely coming! I do think this could be groundbreaking: imagine never needing to type a password again. Provided finger scanning is fast and accurate then I'll be in heaven.

Adam

 

[Mrbobb]

[*]Fingerprint sensor. I know this is almost definitely coming! I do think this could be groundbreaking: imagine never needing to type a password again. Provided finger scanning is fast and accurate then I'll be in heaven.
[/LIST]

There must be a reason why finger-scan laptops went out of favor, so we'll see.

Innovation = something that delights and is useful everyday.

 

[eyoungren]

Haptic touchscreen. Your screen would no longer feel like ordinary glass - you would be able to feel different textures. Think of being able to feel UI controls and what would happen when developers are allowed to experiment.

As long as we're talking about textures or something like that and not what haptic feedback currently is.

Had that in 2009 with my Touch Pro and it was one of the first damn things I turned off. Simply annoying to have your freaking phone vibrate in your hand in response to every touch!

This is also one of the first things I turned off with my iPhone(s). Why do I need the phone to vibrate at the same time it's ringing? I can clearly hear that it's ringing. What does vibrating add to the mix except to be annoying.

Everyone is different though so I guess there are some people who are cool with that.

 

[Fusion79]

Something has to be done with notifications. The Active Display feature on the new Moto's is killer. I just got a Maxx for my work phone and that feature has quickly become one of my favorites mobile phone features.

 

[scott99]

Just think about the first time you saw the original iPhone, the first time you touched it. If you're an iPhone fan, you wanted that immediately. Hell, it didn't even have apps at the time. But you still wanted to get it, you wanted to touch it, mess around with it. Also, think about what you had before you had the iPhone (IF you were one of those who got your first iPhone in 2007). I had the Palm Treo 700P. The 1st iPhone replaced 3 things, your phone, your iPod and your PDA (remember those ?).

What a difference between phones. THAT'S innovation. The difference between iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 should be THAT innovative as the difference between that Palm Treo 700p and the 1st iPhone.

 

[hagr182]

For one, a better speced phone, I want my next iphone (currently on 4S (that is fast enough for me9 until november 2014) to be blazingly fast. maybe a quad core processor, 2 or 4 gb of ram (by 2014 the galaxy series will sure have this amount, they already have 2 gb).

Also we need more software services, something that makes us go: "wow, I got to sell my phone to get the new one with x feature". Maybe NFC.

 

[Dulcimer]

Something has to be done with notifications. The Active Display feature on the new Moto's is killer. I just got a Maxx for my work phone and that feature has quickly become one of my favorites mobile phone features.

I tried googling it but I don't understand why the notifications are special.

 

[Fusion79]

I tried googling it but I don't understand why the notifications are special.

From Phonearena

The far more interesting side of things is the Active Display feature, which will be using the Moto X's AMOLED display in an incredible way to bring you info with a minimal hit to battery usage. We saw this a bit in the Rogers promo video, and earlier today we mentioned it as a way to "allows users to preview messages and app alerts without waking their phone". Now, we know a bit more about how that will work.

According to the tutorial screenshots on the feature, the phone will fade in and out notifications (as we saw in the video), but the real key here is that the display will light "only the pixels needed", rather than waking the entire display, which will drastically reduce battery usage. Even better, as we've heard about the awareness features of the device, the Moto X will know when it is in your pocket, face down, or on a call, and not show notifications in those situations. So, using the various phone sensors, notifications will only show when you are most likely to see them.

Additionally there are various controls for the notifications that appear. Dragging the notification upwards will expand it with more detail, and dragging down to the unlock area will unlock your device and launch you straight into whatever app triggered the notification. Dragging a notification right or left will throw it away, much like the swipe gestures you find in various places around Android and Google Apps these days.

Active Display does come with a fair number of control settings as well. It looks like you will be able to manage the types of notifications that come through; and, it does say "type", which implies there won't be per-app controls. You can also choose to hide notifications altogether if you use a PIN lock or gesture lock on your device. And, you can set sleep times where notifications won't be shown, no matter what.

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Moto...splay-available-for-any-Android-phone_id46527

It's a great feature. Kind of hard to explain but once you use it you wonder why nobody did it before.

 

[eyoungren]

Just think about the first time you saw the original iPhone, the first time you touched it. If you're an iPhone fan, you wanted that immediately. Hell, it didn't even have apps at the time. But you still wanted to get it, you wanted to touch it, mess around with it. Also, think about what you had before you had the iPhone (IF you were one of those who got your first iPhone in 2007). I had the Palm Treo 700P. The 1st iPhone replaced 3 things, your phone, your iPod and your PDA (remember those ?).

What a difference between phones. THAT'S innovation. The difference between iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 should be THAT innovative as the difference between that Palm Treo 700p and the 1st iPhone.

I got my first smartphone in May 2009. HTC Touch Pro because Sprint did not have the iPhone then and I wasn't going to AT&T.

I would have gotten the iPhone if Sprint had it then. That said, innovative or not, by May of 2009 the iPhone was still incapable of doing cut and paste and did not have picture mail. Both of those items were old hat by the time I got my Touch Pro and thus I had those from day one.

Yes, Apple and AT&T got those things worked out later that year (or next, I don't recall) but (and while I love Apple) I think innovative in the original iPhone was short on features.

Note too that the iPhone 3GS has a crap camera (no, it has a crap camera, period) compared to my four year old Touch Pro, which also came with a flash. The iPhone didn't get a flash until the iPhone 4.

 

[scott99]

I got my first smartphone in May 2009. HTC Touch Pro because Sprint did not have the iPhone then and I wasn't going to AT&T.

I would have gotten the iPhone if Sprint had it then. That said, innovative or not, by May of 2009 the iPhone was still incapable of doing cut and paste and did not have picture mail. Both of those items were old hat by the time I got my Touch Pro and thus I had those from day one.

Yes, Apple and AT&T got those things worked out later that year (or next, I don't recall) but (and while I love Apple) I think innovative in the original iPhone was short on features.

Note too that the iPhone 3GS has a crap camera (no, it has a crap camera, period) compared to my four year old Touch Pro, which also came with a flash. The iPhone didn't get a flash until the iPhone 4.

Sure, the iPhone lacked some things other phones had. You had to jailbreak to get video recording, gps was non existent, etc. BUT, they've corrected everything since, and I really can't think of anything I'd need on my iPhone 5 that I can't do. To me, the last great barrier was LTE/4G. And now I have that. BUT, the iPhone was the FIRST touch screen phone that was worth a damn, everybody copied the iPhone afterwards. I remember people saying about some android phones, "It's just like an iPhone", when in reality, it wasn't. To me, the ONLY phone worth getting besides the iPhone since it came out, was the Galaxy S3 (and now the S4). Everything else sucked. And believe me, I checked, almost switched to the EVO before I found out what a piece of **** it was.

 

[eyoungren]

Sure, the iPhone lacked some things other phones had. You had to jailbreak to get video recording, gps was non existent, etc. BUT, they've corrected everything since, and I really can't think of anything I'd need on my iPhone 5 that I can't do. To me, the last great barrier was LTE/4G. And now I have that. BUT, the iPhone was the FIRST touch screen phone that was worth a damn, everybody copied the iPhone afterwards. I remember people saying about some android phones, "It's just like an iPhone", when in reality, it wasn't. To me, the ONLY phone worth getting besides the iPhone since it came out, was the Galaxy S3 (and now the S4). Everything else sucked. And believe me, I checked, almost switched to the EVO before I found out what a piece of **** it was.

I can give you all that. Again, at the time, if Sprint had had the iPhone I would have gotten it. I wanted one. And it would have been my first smartphone so I would never have known the difference as far as what was missing.

And don't get me wrong. I love my iPhone 5. I waited an extra year for Sprint to get it even when they already had the 4 and 4S (which I do not care for). And my waiting was rewarded. Completely blows my old Touch Pro out of the water.

But Apple tends to promote itself and while some stuff is really, really cool and awesome they aren't always the first to do it. While Apple usually does it BETTER, it also usually takes them a while to do it at all.

 

[sviato]

Waterresistant is as far as I think phones will go for a while when dealing with liquids. Saying something is waterproof can lead to some liability.

 

[bushman4]

The IPhone and other cellular phones are currently at a period of inactivity. For now most of the large innovations are in. As for flexible screens, NFC etc.these features are still years away. For anyone to think that we will be seeing this soon is Ridiiculous As for other features, as long As battery life doesn't improve we won't see them unfortunately.
Bottom line: If you don't expect to much you won't be disappointed

 

[McPc]

Well a flexible screen looks like it may be in the near future. I saw a flex screen demo and it also showed how it could also wrap around to the long edge and display text notifications on the spine.

 

[Jimmy James]

I'd say it's something that is implemented for the first time, in a manner that is meaningful to the end user. Revolutionary might be a synonym.

The original iPhone seems widely considered to be innovative. The only innovation seemed to be the multitouch screen. Smartphones were here before. The os might qualify but people mostly seem to want that to change now for its own sake and to alleviate their boredom.

I can't anticipate what innovation will look like now. While I would welcome it if it came I'm not sure we need it. I've appreciated the steady progress that's been happening.

 

[Michael CM1]

[*]Fingerprint sensor. I know this is almost definitely coming! I do think this could be groundbreaking: imagine never needing to type a password again. Provided finger scanning is fast and accurate then I'll be in heaven.
[/LIST]

There must be a reason why finger-scan laptops went out of favor, so we'll see.

Innovation = something that delights and is useful everyday.

Your phone is in your pocket, which means it can go almost anywhere. Your notebook is not in your pocket. While it may go with some people everywhere, you're not going to pay for something with it without looking like a total goofball.

So if you have an iPhone with a fingerprint scanner and some payment method that's based on NFC, WiFi, Bluetooth or whatever, you combine these to get a payment method that should be more secure than swiping a plastic card with a magnetic strip.

We had a hand scanner all over campus in college. We would swipe our student IDs and then place our right hand on a plate below it. This controlled dorm access and payments at the dining halls. I think it did other things, but I'm not sure. This was in the late 1990s.

Home Depot accepts PayPal, so I can easily imagine some mechanism allowing easy PayPal purchases. I'm assuming this could also be used as better verification for online purchases compared to "put in three numbers on the back of the card."