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phone-y dreams

Monday,  03/21/16  08:19 AM

I was just ruminating on the possibilities of the just-about-to-be-announced iPhone SE.  We've all read what's coming; the iPhone SE will be a 4" phone, similar to the iPhone 5S, but with some of the improvements made in the iPhone 6: better camera, Apple Pay (NFC), A9 processor, barometer, better battery life, 3D preview.  Oh and it may be thinner and rounder and possibly come in some new interesting colors.

But if I could make my dreams a reality, what would I really want in a new phone?  Hmmm...

Smartphones have become amazing and most of the things you could dream about are evolutionary improvements: smaller / thinner / lighter / faster etc.  The real weak points now are in the human-device interface.

  • On input, something better than a virtual keyboard would be a huge advance.  Physical keyboards *are* better, at a slight cost of making the device larger, but they're a compromise.  Maybe some means of giving a virtual keyboard tactile feedback?  Or a way to use any available surface as a keyboard (laser etc)?  Or something brand new ... a direct neural link!
  • On output, a built-in projector which enables a larger display than the phone screen would be great.  Oh, and cordless earphones.

We'll check on this later today after the announcement :)

PS of course, I'd love it if IOS 10 looked like IOS 5, but that *would* be dreaming