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What hardware upgrades could Apple possibly offer to sell future iPhones and iOSs?

wikoogle

wikoogle

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 12, 2009
929
0
People have been clamoring for a decent camera, a camera flash, a front facing camera since the very first iPhone came out.

It seems like with iPhone 4, they delivered on every single major hardware feature people asked for, except for a 4.3 inch screen.

Other than a 4.3 inch screen, I can't think of what hardware improvements apple could possibly offer in the iPhone 5 to get all but the most tech obsessed to upgrade next.

Do you think they will do something completely unexpected and out of the left field, like a 3D screen akin to the Nintendo 3DS?

What can you think of?

Xenon Flash instead of LED Flash?

Micro-SD Card slot with access to a file system that lets you use both the phone, and the SD card as an external hdd?

A Camera Shutter and a Shutter Button and Screen Orientation Lock?

Analog Zoom for the Camera + Even Bigger Lens/Larger CCD for even better quality pictures and videos?

A 4.3 Inch Screen?

A 4G LTE Antenna with support all of the 2G, 3G and 4G frequencies worldwide and the ability to use Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile?

Bluetooth 3.0? A Built in Projector!?

SD Card Slot?

Dual Speakers like the iPad and support for 3D surround sound?

Reduce the size of the bezel on the top of and on the bottom of the phone?

Center the front and rear cameras on the phone?

Along with a bigger screen, put the antennas back inside the phone case to prevent interference (would also get rid of the seams in the metal border around the phone)?

A CPU Upgrade (to the dual core Cortex A9 processors)?

A GPU Upgrade (to the SGX545)?

Siri Voice Controls hardwired into the phone to allow you to launch apps, and control apps by voice alone? Sync and stream from AppleTV/iTV wirelessly via cloud?

IR, FM Radio & Transmitter, HD and DAB+ Radio, RFID, Pedometer?

Wireless Payment Chip (ex: Paywave or Paypal)?

HDTV Tuner/TV Reciever and Mini HDMI Out?

A Smaller Bezel Above & Below the Screen?

64GB/128GB? Light Peak?

Super AMOLED and a 3D Screen like the 3DS?

Touch gestures/sensors on the corners of the phone and/or on the glass back of the phone?

Replace home button with a touch sensative area to make the phone even more aesthetic and symmetric (Get rid of the round indentation below the screen and replace it with an unindented, unmarked button)

8 MP Camera/1080p Video Recording?

Maybe if those features end up in the new iPhone it would be enough of a leap to warrant an upgrade.
 
Don't get me wrong, I can think up a ton of SOFTWARE upgrades they can make to iOS5, but not many that can't already be done by jailbreaking, and as far as hardware upgrades go, I think this current phone is close to perfect. All it really needs is a 4.3 inch screen to make web browsing and book reading easier on it.

Even the software is nearing perfection. The major things like multitasking finally made the cut. What's left that's major?

Dynamic icons for the weather app, the clock app, the stocks app that show the actual temperature, the actual time, or the direction of the dow jones on the app icon itself?

Notifications of new texts/emails/missed calls on the lock screen itself? Upgrades and improvements to notifications?

Full Voice Control That Allows You To Control the OS (ex: Saying "iPhone: Turn off Bluetooth")?

The Ability to create different profiles for Work, School, Airport, Home, Workout, Different Users of the iPhone?

Support for more video and audio codecs?

Ability to plug it into a usb port and use it as an external hdd/flash drive?

Ability to delete individual phone calls and texts?

LED Notification Lights, Magic Trackpad/Magic Mouse capabilities?

Use the IR transmitter to make it the ultimate remote control

A Fully Customizable Home Screen with the ability to add widgets to it?

Apple's own Navigation App integrated with Google Maps or Google Navigation/Latitude?

Wireless streaming to Apple TV?

Wireless Hotspots?

Wireless Sync and Cloud based iTunes and wireless file transfer over bluetooth?

But none of that seems as important as multitasking, and once these features are implemented, what else is left?

And besides, you can pretty much do all those things already simply by jailbreaking the phone.

Wouldn't the phone be pretty much perfect in every possible way once they pull off this stuff? How will they be able to get more people to upgrade?
 
Bigger screen. Faster processor that can handle real multitasking, not the fake multitasking they're doing now. More memory- you allow for HD recording and the largest drive is 32 gig? Wow. A way to add buttons - the iphone will never compete with Nintendo for serious gamers without buttons. And to those saying Apple isn't competing with Nintendo...oh yes they most definitely are.
 
I think the next iPhone will be like the 3GS, more of a spec bump. So faster, better camera etc. The real next leap will be the iPhone 6.
 
Little bit bigger LCD, 3D capability on games and movies, 4G ready, stereo recording on voice and video, wireless hot spot, ect...
 
wikoogle said:
Don't get me wrong, I can think up a ton of SOFTWARE upgrades ..................
Click to expand...

A big software improvement I'd like to see is a call alert similar to the text message.

I hate ............................... well i shouldn't say 'hate' ......................................... more like 'vehemently despise with the fury of a thousand suns' is how a call knocks me out of my app.

"But multitasking will fix that!"

I've never cared about restarting an app actually its just that I don't want to be kicked out AT ALL. I want it to be just like the text message alert. ;)
 
I would love to see a 64GB, FM Transmitter, 8MP camera, and a bigger screen. Software is a whole different story.
 
fishmoose said:
I think the next iPhone will be like the 3GS, more of a spec bump. So faster, better camera etc. The real next leap will be the iPhone 6.
Click to expand...

Yes, but what leap? What else could they possibly add that would make a significant improvement in user experience.

Yes, they can always include more ram, a faster processor etc, but I honestly don't see how the phone could be any faster than the iPhone 4 to a degree that it would actually be noticable. Do you?

If apps launch a few milliseconds faster, would people really notice?
 
I vote that rather than a bigger screen, they add a projector to it. The iPhone is the perfect size right now, except when you want to watch video and movies. Adding a projector to it would be awesome!

I realize that projector technology doesn't really allow for a decent-contrast, low-enough-energy-using small projector right now, but in the future--who knows!
 
wikoogle said:
Yes, but what leap? What else could they possibly add that would make a significant improvement in user experience.

I don't see it.
Click to expand...

3D-screen, even higher resolution/ppi. 4G (LTE) support etc. It's hard to imagine right now I agree with that. But this is what tech companies do they will think of something.
 
I don't think there will be exterior changes. They look to now be on a 2 year cycle. The main reason they changed the design from the original to the 3G was the aluminum casing would kill the 3G signal.

Maybe a camera upgrade. More space definitely. Some upgrades to internal hardware. I think that'll be it.

You'll have to wait until the 6th gen to see any major upgrades.
 
abijnk said:
And for reference, the iPad doesn't have dual speakers, it's just got one on the lower right frame.
Click to expand...

The iPad does indeed have two speakers. In the teardown you can clearly see the there is a right and left speaker within the iPad. But they come out of the same hole at the bottom.
 
Gigzz said:
Bigger screen. Faster processor that can handle real multitasking, not the fake multitasking they're doing now. More memory- you allow for HD recording and the largest drive is 32 gig? Wow. A way to ad buttons - the iphone will never compete with Nintendo for serious gamers without buttons. And to those saying Apple isn't competing with Nintendo...oh yes they most definitely are.
Click to expand...

I think the iPhone allows access to the 30 pin connector for controller addons. I believe a few were made, but I doubt anyone really buys them and/or games support them.
 
fishmoose said:
3D-screen, even higher resolution/ppi. 4G (LTE) support etc. It's hard to imagine right now I agree with that. But this is what tech companies do they will think of something.
Click to expand...

I like the idea of a 3d screen similar to Nintendo's 3ds. Good idea.
 
wikoogle said:
Yes, but what leap? What else could they possibly add that would make a significant improvement in user experience.

Yes, they can always include more ram, a faster processor etc, but I honestly don't see how the phone could be any faster than the iPhone 4 to a degree that it would actually be noticable. Do you?

If apps launch a few milliseconds faster, would people really notice?
Click to expand...

I'm sure that's what people said when computers had 16mb of ram and 200mhz processors.
 
iPhone 4GS Specification

- Same size/shape as the iPhone 4.
- 4G LTE
- 1.5GHz Dual Core (ARM Cortex A9-MP)
- SGX545 Graphics
- 32GB / 64GB
- HDMI output (optional cable for $29/apple store, $1/ebay)
- 3.5" Screen (I prefer 3.5 than 4.3)
- IPS LCD (IPS LCD is better than pentile super AMOLED).
- Bluetooth 3.0
- 5M Pixel Camera with larger CCD + LED Flash
- Wireless streaming to Apple TV.
- iNavi (Apple Navigation on Google maps).
- Wireless hotspot (without jailbreaking)
 
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