What would constitute a revolutionary feature on a mobile phone?

[dmw16]

Wireless charging seems a little bit silly to me. I mean, either way you need a device that's plugged into the wall. So whether it's a plug in thing I rest my phone on or a wire I plug from my phone into the wall, seems pretty much the same to me.

 

[God Mode]

Wireless charging seems a little bit silly to me. I mean, either way you need a device that's plugged into the wall. So whether it's a plug in thing I rest my phone on or a wire I plug from my phone into the wall, seems pretty much the same to me.

One of the most annoying and repetitive things to do is inserting a charging cable into the phone. It's also one less potential point of failure. Wireless everything will be the catalyst to world peace. Wires piss me off so much. I feel like playing real life castlevania and swinging the device against the wall if I'm in a bad mood and wires catch on edges or tangle around me.

 

[soccerballtux]

Built in solar panel on the back of the phone + whatever empty spaces on the front/sides.

I like this idea. I'm tired of turning the screen on and waiting 5 seconds for the light to turn on after toggling the widget.

 

[Spoooon]

Didn't someone already do a phone with a solar panel on the back?

 

[TuxDave]

You guys are thinking too small. A wide adoption of NFC and improved security so that I don't have to carry my wallet or my keys and I don't have to enter passwords for anything I need to do ALL while having the security such that if someone stole my phone they couldn't use any of those features.

Yeah.... that would be a huge revolution.

 

[ilkhan]

You guys are thinking too small. A wide adoption of NFC and improved security so that I don't have to carry my wallet or my keys and I don't have to enter passwords for anything I need to do ALL while having the security such that if someone stole my phone they couldn't use any of those features.

Yeah.... that would be a huge revolution.

A bottom touch panel sensitive and accurate enough to do fingerprints, thus not needing any other security, would indeed be pretty awesome.

 

[jimhsu]

Haptic touch technology (and I mean actual texture/shape, not simply vibration). I know there are some research projects in labs, but commercially? Will take a while. Bonus for holographic touch, though a conservative estimate for that would probably be mid 2020s (it is in labs though, believe it or not).

 

[runawayprisoner]

Ok, this isn't meant to be an iPhone vs all thread, but it was inspired by a conversation I had with a coworker along those lines.

He criticized the iPhone for not being revolutionary anymore. And I agree, the 5 is very much an evolution of the 4S and the 4S an evolution of the 4, I just don't see what revolutionary feature is missing from my phone but possible in the bounds of current technology.

What are people expecting as far as revolutionary features?

Well, let's see... few things that I expected (some of it from my perspective as a developer):

1) Make the home button go away. Seriously. I want to implement an interface where I have some control over the behavior of my app... and that I don't have to constantly try and make sure the ****ing user won't quit the app arbitrarily while I'm trying to load something huge. It's pretty annoying having to deal with Apple's background execution windows. The elongated screen was just PERFECT for emulating a virtual home button for legacy apps, but no... they decided to play it safe and just put black borders instead.

2) NFC... while it may be weird, I think it'll be doubly cool if I can touch my phone on a poster or table and be able to grab information instantly.

3) Dedicate a button specifically to launching the photo app and taking photos.

4) Landscape orientation for home screen... since I don't want to have to constantly turn my phone upright while I'm reading in sideway mode.

5) Carbon fiber body... and use something else other than glass that's just as scratch-resistant and transparent. While the iPhone 5 doesn't feel like a cheap toy, it can break just like one if you drop it from a sufficient height.

6) Add more languages to Siri. Nuance's framework already added recognition support for new languages. Make Siri available as a native speech-to-command API for developers so we don't have to rely on Nuance's framework anymore. Or is there a licensing issue that prevents this...?

7) Fix "auto brightness". Seriously. 6 phone generations, 6 major OS revisions, and yet "auto brightness" remains as it has always been: only activates at unlock screen, constantly tries to make the screen brighter, and doesn't want to dim the screen when it's dark outside. I mean... seriously, that's not "auto brightness"... unless by that they mean "automatically brighten the screen or leave it be".

 

[halik]

The new iPhone I believe is enough to keep current iPhone users happy but not enough to convince others to switch to it. They've definitely played it extremely safe these past two iPhone releases and it's done them fine but if they keep it going like this, it won't be good for them in the long run. I don't believe the revolutionary features come from hardware but from software and that's where Apple needs to eventually change.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/13/3323082/iphone-5-predictable-73-degrees-sunny

This,
I was considering just getting the 5 out of pocket, but there really isn't that much groundbreaking stuff to make it worth $400.

 

[halik]

Theromdynamics would like a word with you.

I LOLd

 

[halik]

A combination of NFC and wireless charging would be cool.

Just drop your phone on top of your stereo and it would start playing music.

Drop it on your desk and it opens your email and calender on your PC.

This. Location aware stuff could be extremely useful if implemented right.

 

[halik]

Well, let's see... few things that I expected (some of it from my perspective as a developer):

1) Make the home button go away. Seriously. I want to implement an interface where I have some control over the behavior of my app... and that I don't have to constantly try and make sure the ****ing user won't quit the app arbitrarily while I'm trying to load something huge. It's pretty annoying having to deal with Apple's background execution windows. The elongated screen was just PERFECT for emulating a virtual home button for legacy apps, but no... they decided to play it safe and just put black borders instead.

That's a horrible idea. As a user I don't give a shit what your app is doing, I want to get back to the home screen. You should feel lucky they don't reset the state entirely

 

[TheStu]

That's a horrible idea. As a user I don't give a shit what your app is doing, I want to get back to the home screen. You should feel lucky they don't reset the state entirely

Furthermore, can we agree that a physical button is this regard is superior to a capacitive or worse, SOFTWARE based button? I don't want to have to worry about accidentally triggering the back or home button when I am typing.

 

[gotsmack]

What I expect from a new "revolutionary" phone coming out now:

1. almost no bezel. Just like 1mm going around to hold in the glass and a slightly thicker strip up top for the camera, speaker, and notification light.

2. Wireless charging.

3. Better camera, not in terms of MP, but higher quality sensor and glass for low light pictures and video.

4. Better battery life, I don't care if the phone is as thick as phones from 2 years ago.

4b. but if you make the phones that thick, throw on full sized USB and HDMI

5. HDMI connection so that I can put up my screen onto a TV, sometimes I'm at a friends house and I want to show them my pictures

 

[kaerflog]

The last phone I thought was revolutionary was the iPhone 4.
At the time, nothing can touch it.
Beautiful design, a high resolution display, longest battery life, best camera, smoothest UI.
At the time, the only Apple product I ever had was the original iPhone and I bought it for someone. I thought it was meh.
Same thing again with the iPhone 4. I bought it for someone but as I was playing with it, I fell in love with it and bought one for myself.
Sadly since then Apple is resting on its laurels.
The 4s brought nothing new.
Same thing with the 5. The elongate screen does not interest me in a bit.
The only new interesting thing is the in-cell touch technology.
I have to see it to see how much better is it.
This is the phone I'm looking forward to the most.

 

[pandemonium]

I was just about to create a new thread entitled exactly what I thought could be the next major leap forward in smartphone technology, so instead I'll just post my idea here.

I think it'd be interesting to have the next innovative standard for a smartphone/tablet/notebook be eye-tracking input recognition. I'm not talking about using the front-facing camera just to acknowledge if the user is looking at the screen, like on the Galaxy S III. I'm talking about actually having the device catch each eye movement and hit the relative area on the screen as if being physically pressed.

I realize there are some inherent issues with this innovation: when will the device register you want to tap, hold, scroll, or pinch for their respective functions? One way I can think of to make these functions work is to combine vocal input with eye input. Look at a widget for .2 seconds and say, "edit, remove, move, etc." Which leads to the next problem: the amount of time for your eyes looking at a section on the screen will have to be very minutely defined, since our eyes move very quickly naturally. The camera would then need to have a framerate of around 200fps+ in order to properly work.

I feel that the idea is sound, it's just proving difficult laying out the logistical implementation. Using a touch screen was generally smooth for the public to adapt to, but still took some time. Adopting using your eyes to control your device will be a much higher step to take for many people, but once acclimated, you could fly through typing on your screen.

Perhaps the only real benefit for this is for typing. Even then if that's all that could benefit from such an innovation I think it'd be worth it.

The other issue that I see with this is the fact that this won't help with our need to constantly gaze at our devices and further locks in driving problems. On the other hand, if this works as flawlessly as I'm dreaming it could, it may reduce the amount of time for those that can't leave their devices alone in their vehicles while driving.

I know, there's a lot of negatives and some serious hurdles to get passed for eye-tracking on a smart device, but I'd like to believe one day it'll be properly utilized and will really benefit user interaction for any computerized device (PCs, ATMs, POS systems, any handheld, etc.).

An example of eye-tracking technology in the works.
Another example.

 

[pandemonium]

One thing that might be revolutionary is a truly "global" phone, one phone that will work on any network or carrier in the US.

Easy solution to that one: have the carriers that are less common in network technology secede.

 

[pandemonium]

Well, let's see... few things that I expected (some of it from my perspective as a developer):

1) Make the home button go away. Seriously. I want to implement an interface where I have some control over the behavior of my app... and that I don't have to constantly try and make sure the ****ing user won't quit the app arbitrarily while I'm trying to load something huge. It's pretty annoying having to deal with Apple's background execution windows. The elongated screen was just PERFECT for emulating a virtual home button for legacy apps, but no... they decided to play it safe and just put black borders instead.

2) NFC... while it may be weird, I think it'll be doubly cool if I can touch my phone on a poster or table and be able to grab information instantly.

3) Dedicate a button specifically to launching the photo app and taking photos.

4) Landscape orientation for home screen... since I don't want to have to constantly turn my phone upright while I'm reading in sideway mode.

5) Carbon fiber body... and use something else other than glass that's just as scratch-resistant and transparent. While the iPhone 5 doesn't feel like a cheap toy, it can break just like one if you drop it from a sufficient height.

6) Add more languages to Siri. Nuance's framework already added recognition support for new languages. Make Siri available as a native speech-to-command API for developers so we don't have to rely on Nuance's framework anymore. Or is there a licensing issue that prevents this...?

7) Fix "auto brightness". Seriously. 6 phone generations, 6 major OS revisions, and yet "auto brightness" remains as it has always been: only activates at unlock screen, constantly tries to make the screen brighter, and doesn't want to dim the screen when it's dark outside. I mean... seriously, that's not "auto brightness"... unless by that they mean "automatically brighten the screen or leave it be".

These all sound like failings of your product individually, which aren't issues with a lot of other devices available on the market. Maybe you need to consider a different smartphone?

 

[Belegost]

A combination of NFC and wireless charging would be cool.

Just drop your phone on top of your stereo and it would start playing music.

Drop it on your desk and it opens your email and calender on your PC.

Nokia showed that off in their Lumia 920 launch event.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

These all sound like failings of your product individually, which aren't issues with a lot of other devices available on the market. Maybe you need to consider a different smartphone?

Can't speak for the other points since I haven't used an iPhone long enough yet, but the auto-brightness thing is pretty crappy. I was mad at Samsung for ditching the notifications-swipe in the SGS1 to control brightness, and I went with auto-brightness on the SGS3 purely for convenience - it sure as hell didn't do the best job of it. But compared to my iPhone 4, the SGS3 implementation is like heaven to the iPhone's earth awe

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

autobrightness is borked on a lot of devices (ahem SGS2) as well. not sure why manufacturers cant straighten this out....

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

autobrightness is borked on a lot of devices (ahem SGS2) as well. not sure why manufacturers cant straighten this out....

Dunno, never used an SGS2. TBH, I thought it was an Android-wide thing and that all phones had it. It just seems like such a common-sense thing to do, and I guess I really took it for granted. Still getting used to the brightness changes on the SGS3 whenever something blocks light going to the sensor, and still getting used to the way that 'auto-brightness' on the iPhone 4 really means 'we'll-just-have-the-brightness-as-high-as-we-like-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it'.

 

[velis]

4) Landscape orientation for home screen... since I don't want to have to constantly turn my phone upright while I'm reading in sideway mode.

Seriously? IPhone still doesn't have that? And there are no alternative launchers that support landscape? Seems quite unbelievable.

autobrightness is borked on a lot of devices (ahem SGS2) as well. not sure why manufacturers cant straighten this out....

Wouldn't go as far to say that. The problem with autobrightness is two fold:
1. Different people have different tastes
2. One sensor on front phone side can't handle all environmental factors:
2.1. You may be wearing sunglasses (have bad vision, etc.)
2.2. You may be sitting in a shaded area looking toward brightly sunbathed outdoors or vice versa

Today's phones pretty much don't stand a chance at providing perftect auto brightness since they lack the hardware and software necessary to support capturing all the light sources that affect the user's eyes.

 

[ITHURTSWHENIP]

Furthermore, can we agree that a physical button is this regard is superior to a capacitive or worse, SOFTWARE based button? I don't want to have to worry about accidentally triggering the back or home button when I am typing.

Yes and no. A physical button obviously will always feel better than a software button. However my iPhone 4 and pretty much most people i know who still have theirs have had issues with the homebutton. A mechanical button will be worn out eventually

 

[Anubis]

i turned off au to brightness on my gnex on day 1, TBH i hate it, its either too bright or too dim, i hated it on all my other phones as well, i just manually set it to something very low and up it if i need to via a slider in the drop down