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New Design Pending

There’s a new look for Second Son Design coming. I thought I would take the opportunity to post a few sneak peeks here. You’ll have to wait until the coding is done to actually enjoy it, though.

Sketches and drawings

Sketches and drawings

Some arbitrary flourishes

Some arbitrary flourishes

Just a taste of a flourish

Just a taste of a flourish

Building a Better iPhone

iPhone Pro Mockup

My (bad) attempt at an iPhone Pro mockup.

When the iPhone 3G S was announced I was a little underwhelmed. I decided to make a wish list of features which the next iPhone (Pro?) should have.

OLED Touchscreen

An OLED touchscreen would have incredible benefits for the iPhone: blacker blacks, brighter whites, stronger colors and improved battery life.

Aluminum Unibody

Apple has the process, the technology. The acrylic fingerprinting kit they use as a case now is a disappointment. A miniaturized version of the MacBook lids would be fabulous. They could even have the glowing Apple logo on the back with all the power they’d save from the OLED screen.

The aluminum would feel great in your hand, not get smudgy and fingerprinted and naturally resist scratches better than the plastic. My MacBook Pro has remained scratch-free for nearly a year. I can’t even say that my Dell tower lasted that long without damage.

HD Video

This would obviously require some improved hardware (which I talk about later) but it would be the final nail in the coffin for Apple’s competition (Flip, I’m looking at you).

iChat and Forward-Facing Camera

With the iPhone spread across multiple carriers (see below) the bandwidth concerns of video chat are mostly resolved. A forward-facing camera (perhaps of lower quality) would allow users to connect with their friends and family literally from anywhere in the world (where they had 3G coverage).

This is one of those features I think was put on hold because of carrier concerns over users switching to chat on their all-you-can-eat data plans instead of using their (expensive) minutes.

Better Specs

Sure, the doubling of the RAM and improvement of the processing power was decent. I would like to see it more than double this next time. Here would be a truly impressive set of specs:

  • 1 GB of RAM
  • Dual-core 1 GHz processor
  • 64 GB of storage

Multiple Carriers

Ultimately, this is the most important of all the wishes I’ve listed here. AT&T has been an embarassing, disappointing “bag of hurt” for iPhone loyals. In fact, AT&T is one of the primary reasons I didn’t upgrade my 3G to the 3G S. I could have managed the cost of upgrade by selling my 3G but it wasn’t worth signing a new contract to get the subsidized price. I would rather wait a year for the next iPhone (hopefully with the wishes I listed above) than deal with AT&T for an additional year.

I honestly don’t care if it’s Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile or Syringa Wireless, I just want choices. In my opinion there are no wireless carriers that care at all about their customers, AT&T just happens to be one of the worst.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I’ll probably wait all night in a line for the next iPhone no matter the specs they choose to improve. My 3G will be two years old, it will likely be on a new carrier and I am excited for the possibilities of OS 4.0. Here’s hoping at least one of my wishes comes true.

What would you like to see in the next generation of the iPhone? Pipe up in the comments.