Rumours of an Apple mobile phone have been bubbling around the interweb for a few years now, and every time Steve Jobs gets up to make a keynote speech at one of the Apple Expos, the blogosphere gets even more crazy in anticipation of the phone's launch. The latest 'top secret leak' is putting the release at somewhere round January / February 2007.
Loads of concept designs have been put together by aspiring designers / apple geeks, and this site (featured on Core 77) has a great collection of the various visuals, though unfortunately with little information about the designers of each one.
The fantastic shot above, for example, was commissioned for the cover of our favourite Apple Mac magazine, MacUser.
We're still hoping for an Apple mobile, mainly so we can finally have a decent looking phone that syncs up properly with our Macs.
So, if it's not too geeky (okay, it's totally too geeky, but whatever), here's a list of what we'd like to see on an Apple iPhone:
• A 3 megapixel camera (at least, bigger if possible), with movie recording too
• Full sync capabilities with the Mac native applications that make our life easier: Mail, Safari, iChat, iPhoto, iTunes, Address Book and Calendar
• Push email capabilities, like you get with a blackberry
• Caller ID, using full screen shots of callers
• Wireless headphones
• Some decent ringtones - surely an area Apple can forge ahead of other companies
• A stack of storage space for our music libraries, and the chance to plug in even more
• A GPS based system that lets you know when your friends & family are nearby
• A charger that doesn't use power while not in use
Mobile phones are a key part of our lives now, but they never quite seem to work the way we want. Either the user interface is confusing or slow, or the visual design is grim. Another big problem is people buying new handsets every year, which is an environmental insanity. How about a handset that lasts for years and years, but with regular software updates which you pay for? The phone could be sold universally in a basic mode, but then upgraded to your personal needs by installing the applications you want. Hey, a bit like a computer...
Apple have a chance to totally rethink things, and create something brilliant. Let's hope they can do something truly innovative.
