With expectations building that Apple could unveil a new iPhone in June, when it traditionally holds its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, we asked consumers what new features top wish lists.
Bill Police, a machinist in Rialto, Calif., says he’d like to see “improved GPS to get me places faster, with more detail.” He says his wife owns an Android phone by HTC, which has better graphics. “In terms of technology, Apple has fallen behind. It’s time to up their game.”
Since the release of the iPhone 5 in October, competition has gotten more heated, with Samsung’s Galaxy line of phones emerging as the chief competitor to Apple’s innovation crown. A new Galaxy, the S4, is expected in stores at the end of the month, sporting a 5-inch screen and a standout feature: the ability to respond to some eye movements.
HTC’s One phone is also slated for April and BlackBerry’s Q10 keyboard-sporting phone is due either this month or May.
With the new iPhone, “I want a screen comparable to the Galaxy,” says Shynolan Reese, a Houston police officer. “I want a bigger screen—at least 4.5 inches.” (The iPhone 5 screen is 4 inches.)
Elizabeth Zamora, a marketing professional from Dallas, gave us a wish list of features, starting with the ability to scan QR codes from the iPhone camera. Currently you have to acquire and open a QR scanner app to point at those squiggly little graphic codes, which take you directly to a given website.
She’d also like to see the home screen feature weather information or a mini agenda. “Would be nice to see this every morning when I wake up,” she tells us, in an e-mail exchange.
Also on her list: “wireless charging!”
Tom Zangriles, who works for Boeing in St. Louis, sent us a direct message on Twitter to say he hopes the zoom feature for the camera could be “controlled by the volume buttons.” He currently has an iPhone 5.
Brian Carter, a recent college grad from the Washington D.C., area, connected with us via Skype. He’d like to see a fingerprint feature on the next iPhone to replace passwords.
“It would save you more time to get into your phone, and it would give you more security as well.”
Shannon Gilstad, who works with a New York City non-profit, says she wants to see a return to the previous iPhone charger connection. The successor, Lightning, isn’t compatible with iPhone accessories without the purchase of an adapter.
Clayton Holderness, who works for Marriott Vacations in Salt Lake City, says he’d like to see all the storage on the next iPhone go cloud-based, as he’s always running out of room. “My phone itself isn’t able to keep up with the amount of data and pictures and files I need access to,” he says.
Apple’s iCloud service offers free storage space for 5 gigabytes of online backup, but the original stays on the phone. In a perfect world, he would snap a photo on the iPhone, and it would be stored in the cloud, so when he opened his Camera Roll app, he’d be looking at a virtual copy, and not one that physically resided on the phone. Thus, no storage issues with the phone.
“I’d like to see everything cloud based with the option of iPhone download in case you’re traveling without service or Wi-Fi.”
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