Normally I shake my head at people that begin speculating a year in advance at what the next iPhone will hold, but this year I think you really do have to sit back and wonder a little bit. With the announcement of the iPhone 4 today, there were so many new features that you have to ask yourself, “What’s left?”
As we we here at TechnoBuffalo were discussing amongst ourselves today all of the new features, the suggestion of an article outlining what was missing from the fourth generation iPhone came up. The problem is we hit a wall with that idea as we couldn’t immediately think of anything because just about everyone’s wishlist of features has been fulfilled. That turned our eyes towards more int he direction of the iPhone 5, and what can Apple possibly do next year to make people want to upgrade yet again.
I think we’ll see some of the usual suspects like a faster processor, and there’s no doubt that Steve Jobs’ love affair with expanding battery life will pop up, but after that it gets more interesting.
One of the first thoughts that pop into our heads was a projector. Apple is going all nuts with video content, and you can now shoot 720P HD video, but you need a way to share it. Projector phones are popping up with greater frequency, but the biggest issue here would be it ruining the lines and looks of the iPhone. The company just shrank it by another 24%, it is doubtful they will want to fatten it up. Perhaps a projector with a built-in iPhone dock will come out from Apple at some point, but it is doubtful it will be built into the phone.
This does lead to a second thought though about an HDMI-out slot. The iPhone can run HD videos as well as shoot it, but there is no way of getting it to HDMI currently (at least officially, I may have missed a hack somewhere), but again that would be another messing up of the case. Possibly the 30-pin connector will have an HDMI conversion cable at some point?
Then comes the screen. Lets face it, the pixel density of the screen has gone past that of the human eye for the distance you typically hold it at, so there is really no point in increasing the density any more.
All we are left with out a couple of ideas of different models with different screen sizes and features, and, of course, multiple carriers. The front facing camera and video conferencing were two of the big things people had waited for, and we already knew multi-tasking was coming, so it really is the first time in a long time that people are left going, “What next?” what in comes to the iPhone.
What say you? What do you see happening in the iPhone 5 to keep it interesting?
