There's not much left to "fix" on mobile phones, and no real important features to add. Lacking that, they need something to sell the phones with, so they're going for these strange "improvements". It needs to be something that has some wow factor so they can lead with. This seems to somehow work on normal people so they'll keep doing these "improvements".
I expect in the future they'll pull this trick again, moving bits of the phone upwards towards camera, and create a second notch from half way down, where the phone will get even thinner, and they'll sell that.
- novel approach to camera optics that can completely flatten them into the phone - front camera hidden behind the screen removing the island or inset - dramatically better battery tech density leading to like week long usage - way more ram (100gb+) and processing power for powerful local llm and other ai - significant reduction in thickness and weight. like this air with no bump but also under 100 grams - maybe some stuff with projectors
With the introduction of the iPhone Air, it would have been a great opportunity to do this on the normal model.
Those who care about phone thickness could buy the Air, and the rest of us could have our large battery flat phones.
Interestingly Chinese manufacturers seem to be the main adopters of this tech. For example, the article below has Samsung, Xiaomi, ZTE, Oppo, Vivo (actually, this may just be due to there being many more large Chinese phone manufacturers in general.) https://www.smartprix.com/bytes/under-display-camera-phones/
The motivations of Apple to keep things as they are for so long, despite strong criticism from all over is one of business mysteries. A little middle finger to its user one may say, not big enough to stir things too much, just a bit.
The only relevant criticism is their sales figures and revenue numbers. Everything else is just noise.
I love the idea behind the pro phone and going all out on cameras, but practically I want the air more. I wish it had an ultrawide, but it is what it is - I have and frequently carry around an actual camera with me most places I go where I'd want to take photos.
The thing you are looking for is meta lenses, not the company. They could cover the entire back-face of the phone and provide some pretty incredible capabilities. We are not there yet, but I'd expect to see them in the next 20 years.
- Novel radios that enable true Starlink connection in your pocket for gigabit internet globally
- multi-spectrum imaging for spectroscopy and FLIR-like cameras to get temperature info in images
- Light field camera system for true 3D imaging and synthetic refocusing
- Air quality sensor that can also act as breath analyzer
I was going to come in with a set of reasons why these wouldn't sell, but... I think they could! Air quality fits neatly into Apple's health push, though I could see them making that a Watch feature rather than a phone feature (since your phone lives in your pocket, and quality sensors need time for the readings to stabilize). 3D imaging and synthetic refocusing both have a wow factor that would be easy to get people excited about. The only one I'm unsure of is multi-spectrum imaging; while I suspect pretty much anyone on this forum would jump at that, I don't have a good idea of whether the general population would get excited about temperature data. At the very least, it'd be handy for some kitchen tasks where you need a surface temperature.
We also have a Seek phone attachment camera. It's cool but again, don't use it in daily life that much.
Satellite comms gets very close to face melting tech quite quickly, so I would prefer not to have that in a mobile device....
I would like a light field camera. I've seen some research about using and array of 1mm2 cameras (basically the smallest omnivision module) and one decent module to make a synthetic high res camera. Takes a huge amount of GPU power to get not very interesting results though.
Restricted by ITAR. You can buy lowres attachments for it on Aliexpress though.
Currently trying to get a solid postmarketOS setup so I can switch back to Linux before the SE goes out of support. Apple really doesn't offer an upgrade path from this device.
- Batteries that charge fast. Batteries that can support 2-3 days of use. Lighter batteries.
- Thinner camera.
- Better screens outdoor.
- No overheating.
- Better software, or a lower bar: fix the bugs.
- Satellite connectivity.
just few things on the top of my head and things that will interest me and justify a new purchase.
Features I want: ask siri for the things I look up and it works. "When did the baby fall asleep" instead of opening Nanit. "How many more intervals in this workout" instead of opening TrainerRoad. "What is my next meeting" instead of opening Outlook. This was the promise of the new Siri and it just has yet to really come true.
Other than that I agree. Especially camera bumps are annoying to me, I would prefer a phone thick enough to make the bump disappear, that would then automatically solve the battery life issue as well.
Battery chemistry isn't there yet. Frankly, we are lucky enough phones don't set themselves ablaze every day - it only takes minuscule errors and you get a Galaxy Note.
> Thinner camera.
Hard to beat physics and if you ask me, "AI" slop is already being overused on cameras to hide the fact that good picture quality requires sensor area and distance for the optics.
> Satellite connectivity.
We're already beginning to see that with Starlink LTE.
I'm happy with my iPhone, but it still has a week or so shorter battery life than even a relatively cheap Nokia phone and with all that available space I know something it could be used for.
Oh, there's a LOT that can be improved.
IR keyboards lack haptic feedback
Aside from enhancedprivacy, a desire to drain your battery, a lack of recurring revenue for local phone LLMs, and functioning when network is inaccessible, what would a local LLM do that a network-enabled feature couldn't?
We’ll see what the sales numbers are like.
What matters to me is how comfortable it is to hold and use with one hand. Large and thin phones tend to be bad in that aspect.
Niche, but (true) satellite communication. If i understand correctly what we have in the pixel 9/10 is not nearly as useful as having a garmin, never mind the fact that it works basically in europe and US only
It is nice to know that at least some companies are still trying hard to innovate.
All other cameras have wrist straps as a safety feature. From flimsy ribbons on the smallest (smartphone-sized) to padded leather on the largest. They were common on feature phones too. But smartphone makers want people to drop their phones, so people would have to buy new ones, I suppose.
You could get a case with a wrist loop, you say? Not on any of Apple's cases, anyway.
