Revisiting our iPhone wish list

This week marks the year anniversary of Steve Jobs giving the world its very first glimpse at the iPhone. Which means it's also the anniversary of the first time someone looked at Apple's mobile phone and said, "It sounds nice and all, but what it really needs is..."

We're as guilty of this as anyone. The iPhone was barely a month past its June 29 release date before we produced a list of... well, demands is such an ugly word. Let's call it a wish list of iPhone features we wanted to see.

A lot has changed since that iPhone unveiling last January. The smartphone has shipped, for starters, and wound up in the hands of millions of users. Apple has also rolled out four iPhone software updates, some of which have brought major new improvements such as the iTunes Wi-Fi Store, international keyboard support, and video output amongst bug fixes and other, smaller features.

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This week marks the year anniversary of Steve Jobs giving the world its very first glimpse at the iPhone. Which means it's also the anniversary of the first time someone looked at Apple's mobile phone and said, "It sounds nice and all, but what it really needs is..."

We're as guilty of this as anyone. The iPhone was barely a month past its June 29 release date before we produced a list of... well, demands is such an ugly word. Let's call it a wish list of iPhone features we wanted to see.

A lot has changed since that iPhone unveiling last January. The smartphone has shipped, for starters, and wound up in the hands of millions of users. Apple has also rolled out four iPhone software updates, some of which have brought major new improvements such as the iTunes Wi-Fi Store, international keyboard support, and video output amongst bug fixes and other, smaller features.

But for all of that, gaps remain in the iPhone's feature set. Six months after the device's launch--and a week before a Macworld Expo that might see more iPhone modifications--we're revisiting our wish list to see where Apple's smartphone has progressed and where future features still are needed.

Hardware

Adding support for GPS was one of the few changes we wanted that would require new hardware. As is its custom on any product speculation, Apple's been quiet on the subject. Google, however, recently announced it would bring a My Location feature to Google Maps on some cell phones, though support for the iPhone was notably absent. Since this functionality relies on calculating your position in relation to cell phone towers, it could be rolled out in a future software update.

The other hardware-based capability many have demanded is support for 3G wireless technology. This would make both upload and download speeds several times faster than the iPhone's current EDGE networking. It's also a must-have for competing in international markets like Japan, where 3G is already the standard.

Fortunately, there's good news on this front: both Steve Jobs and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson have alluded to a 3G iPhone model--Stephenson went so far as to promise a 3G iPhone in 2008.

Battery power for such a phone has been a major concern as 3G technology consumes more energy, but the development of new, more efficient chips like Broadcom's BCM21551 3G Phone on a Chip processor suggests that many of these obstacles have already been overcome.

Interface

While the iPhone's user interface is almost certainly superior to most of the other phones on the market, that doesn't mean it couldn't stand a few improvements. Last summer, we complained about the lack of text selection, copy and paste, search capabilities, multiple selection, and the ability to use the landscape-oriented keyboard in applications other than Safari. Apple has yet to make a move on any of these fronts, though, judging by the reaction of iPhone users in our office, most of these features are still very much in demand.

Mail

The inability to delete multiple messages in the iPhone's Mail application was one of the most frequent complaints from iPhone users on our staff back in July, and it remains unaddressed in the new year.

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