Ever since the iPhone was launched, there are many features that people wants to see on the phone, for it to be justify its tag as the Jesus Phone.
With the recent preview of iPhone 3.0, some of these much wanted features will be added to the phone come this summer. Cut-n-Paste, MMS, SMS-forwarding, Bluetooth Stereo support etc.
However, there are still many features that people wanted that were not announced. Video capturing and streaming, Flash, background apps, just to name a few.
I can’t claim to have any inside knowledge nor technical know-how to say whether these features could be done at this current juncture. But looking at what Apple have done for the Macs, it definitely is not beyond their abilities to put them in. The iPhone OS and the Mac OS X share much of the same platform which theoretically, means what you can do on the Mac, you probably can do on the iPhone.
But yet, we don’t. Of course there are million and one reasons they are not there. Steve Jobs don’t like how it looks on the iPhone? Marketing wants to keep feature XXX to be for the next version, so that consumers are “trapped”? AT&T can’t afford to have that feature XXX because it will kill their cell network? Too many but one, that is some simple, might just be the simplest reason why we don’t see all these in there.
Batteries. A look around all major phones now show that battery life per charge go between 5-8 hours talk time. Note that is just an estimate based on just talking.
So what happens when you add videos, Flash, music etc. Plus most of the newer phones have bigger and brighter screens. Will you still get that 5-8 hours?
The hardware and software for phones out in the market are getting better and better. Besides the iPhone, there are still the Nokias, the Sony Ericssons, the Palms and add to that you have the Google Android phones. Their interface are getting better, screens look brighter and sharper, their OS gets smarter and apps do more than just calculate tips.
BUT it seems battery technology isn’t matching the rest of the advances. Yes it is much better than phones years ago. But it isn’t outpacing or at least, match the needs of consumers.
Yes we would want our phones to not just be able to call our family and friends, we want to be able to do video conferencing, on bigger screens, take photos and mail it to everyone on my twitter network, and at the same time IM my colleagues back at work, while downloading the last album from iTunes Music Store. We want to do EVERYTHING with our phone. But based on current battery capacity, our phone will probably lasts 5 minutes before we need to charge it.
Which brings me to why I think we won’t see everything we want now on our iPhone. The operating system or the hardware might support it, but the battery won’t. Not until there is a break through in technology which can give us at least twice or more of current capacity after one charge cycle.
Or they make it nuclear powered. What do you think?
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Agreed that battery life is the bottleneck to phones now. Luckily i sit in a comfortable office most of the time and can constantly charge my iPhone every minute. If I am running around outside, I think I need to buy a couple of iPhones (and bring along a pin to change the SIM!).
Haha what are you thinking to do when you say that the battery will be exhausted in 5 min!?