Is anyone else longing for a MAJOR big league upgrade?
I'm talking about a throw it back Steve Jobs iPhone 4 upgrade!
Does anyone remember how huge the iPhone 4 was?
Don't get me wrong. I love my 6S.
But I hope they give us something to get excited about.
Maybe:
1) HologramTime so that the person can be there in the room
2) Complete home control of AC, lights, locks, garage, TV, electronics, shower temperature, coffee machine, all cars, etc
3) Apple concierge service - anything you need delivered or scheduled. Complimentary with iPhone 7 through an app suite.
For example,
if I need to get a haircut, I should be able to pick any salon and schedule an appoint from an easy to use app.
I admire your thinking, but many of the suggestions you've put forward are less to do with what the iPhone can do, and more to do with the limitations of the things you would like it to control. For example, Home automation capability of just about any type of device already exists, but you need your lights, garage, car, thermostat, etc, to be a model that has WiFi automation capabilities in order to be able to talk to the iPhone. However, more and more of these internet of things types of devices are being released by the minute, so I dare say it won't be long before everything goes that way.
Same goes with getting your haircut at the touch of an iPhone button. Actually, this kind of capability is already available on any SmartPhone, PC, or Tablet, as google has alot of these features built into google maps, and many a third party app has had similar functionality built into it, where they will literally locate your nearest restaurant, shop, taxi, hairdresser, gas station, etc, and up comes the address, the link, and a button you can press to call them. Some of the third party apps even make the order for you via the app without you even needing to call. (think things like Uber for taxi cabs, and many an instant restaurant ordering app exists in many countries, with delivery all part of the process, as do apps for supermarket shopping and many other things), and for everything else, there is Amazon.
I agree though that while it would definitely take something mindblowing in terms of an upgrade to get many people to buy an new iPhone now, I'd even go as far as saying that this has as much to do with the fact that alot of the existing iPhone models already do most of what we want them to do, and sometimes too much of a change runs the risk of spoiling all the things that we already felt were near perfection. I've already left many posts on what I feel about them doing away with the headphone jack in place of yet another proprietary extra set being more burdenous to me than what I felt they already had already gotten perfect, which is why I'm not so excited about the iPhone 7 as I would be for something that actually felt like an upgrade than a downgrade. (However, we must also remember that we all tend to want different things) For example, we all have a favourite model (and it isn't always the latest one). For example, people have cited the 4/4S as their iPhone of choice, but my personal favorites are the 5S and SE models, whereas others have cited the 6S Plus because they like bigger screens, and while the 7's headphone jack removal is hated by many, it's also loved and welcomed by just as many people too. So I think we're going to be getting to the stage where they should keep making all the favorites, and everyone can just pick the model that is right for them, rather than hoping that a one-size fits all approach is ever going to work. (as clearly, we're all different, and I'm as guilty as any about getting quite religious about what matters to me personally, which we all do, for completely different reasons).
What it is likely to mean though, is that instead of us all upgrading simultaneously every year each tome the next iteration comes out, we'll probably make the most of our favorite model for as many years as it lasts, and then make the upgrade when the model/size we like best has the feature upgrade that actually matters to us. In many ways though, this will make us less wasteful (and let's face it, there are limits to how many iPhones you even need at any one given time, so a replacement every year was never going to sustain itself long term, and was bound to catch upto itself eventually). Fortunately, iPhones are so brilliantly robust that they last so darn well compared to other phones, and lasting those extra years is probably the only justification for the higher price tag anyway, and that argument would not hold up if we indefinitely replaced them every year.
HologramTime though, I agree would be awesome, and we may even see this one day, but probably not for a while yet. I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater though, as I completely get what you meant when you first wrote this post, so the innovation I'd still like to encourage, and to help add to this discussion, features I would most like to see are things like File and Folder support (imagine if you could do everything that Windows or OSX could do, but right from your smartphone). Of course there are physical size limitations to full on OSX support, but files and folders would still be very much doable).
Back to the Holographic stuff though, there are also more immediate and probably more possible with today's technology that they could implement. What I'd really love to see come to fruition is this...
(I know this is not an iPhone 7, but the projective holographic keyboard and screen concept really did impress me).
The holographic virtual keyboard would definitely remedy the limitations of input control on smaller screens. (and while that concept may sound quite fantasy, believe it or not, Microsoft and are already working on this for their HoloLens, and there had been rumors about it coming out for the iPhone for a while now. But I don't think anyone has perfected it yet, so not quite sure it will make the cut for the iPhone 7 somehow.) -If they do though, I will gladly eat my words, and would be the first to rush out to buy an iPhone 7 whether I need a new iPhone or not. (Hint, hint, Apple! -You know you wanna...) lol.
