The question always lingers in the mind of Apple executives, engineers, programmers, designers, and production team is, how can our next iPhone be better then the last one? Every year, Apple does a simple software upgrade by introducing a new iOS to coincide with a new hardware release 4-5 months later. They introduced iOS 5 and introduced iPhone 4S and iOS 6 was accompanied with iPhone 5. It is evident that the interface of the iPhone has become stale and boring and many people are now moving to the new Samsung Galaxy S4 and the very popular HTC one.
The purpose of this is to show some possible addition and changes Apple can perform on their iPhone line to bring back excitement from not just the day to day consumer, but also the businessman and woman who were very attracted to the iPhone when it was first released.
We’ll go over 2 hardware upgrades and 4 software upgrades that would be beneficial and strategic to include in the next iPhone in order to create a greater public interest in the next iPhone.
Software
Passbook- I use Passbook all the time. Every time I go to the movies, I no longer buy a physical ticket. I buy my tickets online and store the tickets on my iPhone. It saves me time, line-ups and hassle of making sure I remember where I put the tickets. Passbook needs to go one step further, it needs to replace the wallet. Although it is risky as far as the security of it goes, I would love to be able to replace some of my cards such as my store cards, or even credit cards on my iPhone. I hate carrying a wallet and very rarely carry cash that exceeds $20. This Passbook can be used in conjunction with the next software upgrade I’d like to see on the next iPhone.
Fingerprint scanner- This is the biggest rumor on the next iPhone. Apple purchased a finger scanning company Authentec and the big rumor is that they bought it for the finger scanning technology to be used on its future products. So now, if you store your credit card information on your iPhone and make a purchase, the verification would be your finger print. Your finger print will be the purchase approval the merchant would need to complete the sale.
Notification center- Simply put, the notification center on the iPhone is terrible. It does nothing. The notification center should allow the user to turn on their wifi, turn on bluetooth, quickly respond to messages and text and have the ability to have more customizable widgets besides the stock and weather app. It would be nice for users to be able to download their own apps and place it on the notification center per their taste and needs.
Siri- Siri was introduced with the iPhone 4S and since than it has become much more intelligent and useful than before. With iOS 6 Apple also introduced “Eyes free” a feature they added to certain cars such as Honda, Jaguar and a few other cars. The purpose of this feature would allow the user to keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel and place calls and answer text messages and emails. I want to see Siri get smarter by answering questions such as “how is my tire pressure?”, “what is my KM range on my current tank of gas?” Of course this would have to be integrated into the actual cars computer and it would have to have this information on hand at all times and it may not be feasible.
Hardware
Camera- The iPhone has arguably one of the best camera in the smartphone market. It does not sacrifice size of pixels for quality. I would like to see the 8 MP back camera be upgraded to a modest 12 MP and a 2 MP front camera be upgraded to a 1080 p capable 5 MP camera. To allow better crystal clear Facetime and Skype conversations. I would also like to see some sort of photo editing software embedded into the App to allow for quick editing and splicing of photos.
Watch- The much talked about iWatch should coincide with the launch of the iPhone 5S or the iPhone 6 or whatever the next iPhone will be called. The iWatch should be a compliment to the iPhone, not a substitute. The iWatch should show notifications such as incoming calls, text messages, emails and calendar reminders to the watch where the user can quickly glance over at. This would save time for business men to know what is an important call to answer and it would help the every day parent set reminders as far as what time they need to take their kids to soccer practice or what time the in-laws are coming in to have more time to clean up. Of course it has to be stylish and not very big on the wrist and the face of the watch has to be touch in order to accomodate certain features such as accepting or ignoring calls.
These are just a few ideas as far as what Apple can do to bring excitement back into the iPhone, and its company overall. I’ll post another blog soon going more in depth about better ideas and even elaborating on the ones I just listed now.
The Marketing Geek 