[joveblue]

Since iPhone was announced, I've been thinking about the possibilities for what features they could include, and am interested in hearing what you guys have come up with.

The idea of using the iPhone as a laptop replacement is pretty intriguing... I think the ability to run a presentation off an iPhone with no need for a laptop would be pretty cool. It could communicate with projectors via wifi or bluetooth and the presenter could use it as a remote control during the presentation. That would be awesome.

Obviously the ability to view documents would be great, and it would also be useful if you could also make some revisions to documents. That would be useful if you wanted to do some proofreading/editing on the train or take your work over to the park on a sunny day.

I know iPhone doesn't have GPS (yet)... does anyone know how much space/weight it would would add to the iPhone? It would be pretty cool if you could attach it to a dock that sat in the ciggarette lighter of your car, and it would charge it, play your iTunes act as a car phone and also a navigation system. Or would it even be possible to acheive this by triangulating phone towers??

Also, I'm surprised they didn't show this, but lots of innovative games would be possible using multi-touch...

What other ideas have you had?

[evan]

haha I started a wishlist a few days ago..

Expanded Widget Options
--be able to use most of the widgets from apple.com on the phone itself.
Voice Recorder
--simple voice recorder using the phone mic - can be used for recording lectures, personal notes, location of parked car, etc.
iWork / Office funcionality
--both would be more useful
--at the very least, be able to open attachements in related formats
--at most, be able to prepare / run a powerpoint from the device, write in word documents, etc.
Portable External keyboard
--could become viable laptop replacement with aforementioned software
--take notes in class, more efficiently browse web / write emails.
iChat Functionality
--new version of iChat with seamless integration of AIM and SMS buddies on the same buddy list - everything looks the same to the iPhone.
Gmail App
--allow user to chose between gmail and yahoo mail app. Given the unique qualities of gmail it won't really fit in a standard mail application and therefore needs its own (not a big issue because I could just go to gmail.com using the web browser, but still, that's like 3 finger gestures away - COMPLETELy inconvenient).

[evan]

also, more useful than wirelessly communicating w/ a projector would be wirelessly connecting with your laptop during a keynote / powerpoint. The iPhone could be used both as a remote and could also display notes for each slide.

[BarracksSi]

For now, I'd be fine with it being ambidextrous (turning it either left OR right, for example) and having a voice recorder, voice dialing, and vibrate.

Phones should never be used in a car without voice dialing (and an earpiece), and they should never be allowed in a public place without a vibrate-only function. I really hope that Apple hasn't forgotten about those things.

[Chinney]

Originally Posted by joveblue [...] I know iPhone doesn't have GPS (yet)... does anyone know how much space/weight it would would add to the iPhone? It would be pretty cool if you could attach it to a dock that sat in the ciggarette lighter of your car, and it would charge it, play your iTunes act as a car phone and also a navigation system. Or would it even be possible to acheive this by triangulating phone towers??

Integrated with a GPS feature, I’d like it to have an anti-theft/loss feature under which the iPhone would begin to repeatedly e-mail its coordinates back to you once you provide a remote e-mail command. This could include, also, taking repeated photos of its surroundings (to maybe catch a picture of the thief or thieves) and send these with the e-mailed coordinates. Of course, it would have to include protections that made it very difficult to disable these features. (In fact, these features could also be activated on any unsuccessful attempt to disable.) All of this is possible, of course, only if GPS makes any sense to incorporate with the iPhone to begin with.

[chris e boy]

MMS

3G (video calling, tv shows etc)

Java App Support

Vibrate function (has it got this? wasnt mentioned)

Expose

[BuonRotto]

You'd have to think that Jobs turns volcanic if someone's phone goes off in a meeting with him. Unless he demands that people turn off their phones entirely, you would think he'd be on top of that one by the time it ships.

[Julius]

Ok so I know that it has already been mentioned, but the things I hope to see in the iPhone the most are :

iChat for when you have a WiFi network handy. Besides it woud probably make iChat more widespread which would mean I would have a reason to turn open the app on my laptop

GPS! Google Maps! 'Nuff said.

The button on the side was for ring/silent right ? Wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to be able to silence your phone without vibrate. Hope Apple includes this. Otherwise I would have to travel all the way to Cupertino to slap Jobs on the side of the head.... And I would hate to do that

Can't wait to play with this thing when they decide to let it go in Europe. Often you buy a phone without a service provider here (in Denmark anyways) so I'm anxious to see if they can make all the features work which - as far as I can tell from what I've heard - are close tied into the Cingular contract.

[BarracksSi]

Originally Posted by chris e boy Expose

Exposé = Home key. In a roundabout sense.

One common use of Exposé is to switch to another application, especially a specific window within that app.

But, since there are only so many applications on an iPhone, and not multiple windows within each, it's easier (especially on the eyes) to go back to the Home screen and tap the icon for the next desired app. It's still only two finger taps, too.

[TednDi]

Originally Posted by BarracksSi Exposé = Home key. In a roundabout sense. One common use of Exposé is to switch to another application, especially a specific window within that app. But, since there are only so many applications on an iPhone, and not multiple windows within each, it's easier (especially on the eyes) to go back to the Home screen and tap the icon for the next desired app. It's still only two finger taps, too.

Unless you use spaces.

hmm?

[BarracksSi]

No use for Spaces on an iPhone. Its closest equivalent would be the Phone, Mail, Web, and iPod buttons -- those are the only "spaces" you'd need.

[TednDi]

Originally Posted by BarracksSi No use for Spaces on an iPhone. Its closest equivalent would be the Phone, Mail, Web, and iPod buttons -- those are the only "spaces" you'd need.

I disagree. One button for home one for dashboard, one for business, one for games, one for map, etc. you could then program the spaces for whichever apps you might want clustered together.

It would be for the same reasons that you would want spaces on your desktop. The iphone desktop is much smaller and would benefit significantly from spaces organization. Especially if the home screen gets filled up with app buttons.

[russgiro88]

The first thing is that it needs to be 3G.

It needs a mobile version of the iTunes store to download music, video, games, and ringtones.

It'd be great if they made a huge update to .Mac and made it accessible from iPhone. Without going too much into the improvements needed to .Mac, they could do similar features to those that Helio has on their phones with MySpace mobile. You'd also get a push IMAP .Mac email account. You could publish your photos, blog, record podcasts, access your files, sync your calendar, contacts etc. to the web from your iPhone.

A mobile version of Photobooth would be fun.

Also good would be a money management widget or mobile version of Quicken or the like.

Another program that needs overhauling but whose funtions would be useful on the iPhone is Sherlock. A widget for movie showtimes, eBay searching, flight times, an RSS reader, dictionary, translation. It would actually be useful on a phone.

Also a mobile version of quicktime for playing video files on the net.

[Maciej]

In terms of the data connection of the iPhone, do you guys have any predictions on it's ability to share the data connection with a sync'ed laptop? I think that would be some functionality that I would be interested in...

[BFG]

The lack of news regarding .mac and possible iphone integration i think surprised a lot of us. .Mac is way way overdue a major overhaul and i'd love to see tight integration with the iphone. isync mac mail, idisk, shared calenders and photos etc - the iphone sits into this integration perfectly and to be honest i'd be astonished if we don't actually see all this happen. Maybe its being kept quiet for the moment, perhaps its just a matter of time and/or future upgrades or WHEN we see the 3G version... (come on apple we want 3G iphone in the UK!)

[SlackerDX]

I doubt that the iPhone will be sharing the network connection with the MacBook, although it would be nice. One of the features that Jobs was touting was the fact that you got a full HTML browser in mobile Safari.

As far as being able to access the iTunes music store on the phone, I think it would be silly. It would take forever on an EDGE connection. You would have to start downloading the song while you are in line at a club and HOPEFULLY it will be done by the time you are leaving. It doesn't make much sense to me. The point is that it is like an iPod but more useful. They still want you tied to the computer.

One possibility I can see is having the ability to bring your iPhone to a friend's house and watch your movies/listen to music/look at photos using a friend's Apple TV. The iPhone has WiFi so I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to make the Apple TV unit recognize the iPhone and browse its contents.

[Robo]

I would like the iPhone to have the ability to come in pink and work with T-Mobile.

[digitalprimate]

Originally Posted by Roboman I would like the iPhone to have the ability to come in pink and work with T-Mobile.

Pink? Really?

[Electric Monk]

Originally Posted by SlackerDX I doubt that the iPhone will be sharing the network connection with the MacBook, although it would be nice. One of the features that Jobs was touting was the fact that you got a full HTML browser in mobile Safari. As far as being able to access the iTunes music store on the phone, I think it would be silly. It would take forever on an EDGE connection. You would have to start downloading the song while you are in line at a club and HOPEFULLY it will be done by the time you are leaving. It doesn't make much sense to me. The point is that it is like an iPod but more useful. They still want you tied to the computer. One possibility I can see is having the ability to bring your iPhone to a friend's house and watch your movies/listen to music/look at photos using a friend's Apple TV. The iPhone has WiFi so I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to make the Apple TV unit recognize the iPhone and browse its contents.

They will need a 3G version for Europe/South Korea/Japan but that's pretty easy: add a single UMTS/HSDPA band and the world (outside of the US/Canada) is 3G covered. Especially since neither South Korea nor Japan use GSM but both use that UMTS band, although in Japan I believe both Softbank and DoCoMo are still using the slower WCDMA version (they might be rolling out HSDPA IIRC). Luckily HSDPA is backwards-compatible with WCDMA—one of the nice things about UMTS.

The 3G version will have to download songs from iTunes to compete in Japan, at least. Probably if they could do so in Europe they'd do well too, as Japan's case study as shown music downloads are way more popular than video calling or other 3G features.

Your TV idea I like quite a bit, and haven't seen it elsewhere.

[Corpus_Callosum]

Originally Posted by CoachKrzyzewski Portable External keyboard --could become viable laptop replacement with aforementioned software --take notes in class, more efficiently browse web / write emails.

I'm sure the iPhone will allow pairing with bluetooth keyboards. This one seems a perfect complement to me.

[flynnstudio]

yeah I'm digging the laptop replacement vibe too...so for me it would be...

A wireless LCD Monitor, keyb and mouse combo...

I arrive at my desk and the monitor detects my Iphone in my jacket pocket and offers me a login option. I log in and Voila - here is my computer....end of....I have no desktop or laptop PC...if it's one of my 'authenticated monitors' I can option it to 'auto-login'...


...obviously a nice 'transparent' application based terminal network client would be essential for power apps until the platform get's enough horsepower and local storage to run them natively.