Item — HN Reader

I was hoping that the iPhone 5 would be as exciting as the iPhone 4. I was disappointed.

Things I was hoping for:

- Completely waterproof design: would allow taking photos/videos underwater, and prevent water damage in general.

- NFC: I think a lot of people wanted to see this. I know not many places use NFC right now but Apple has always been a driving force of technology, not a follower.

- Built-in projector: Would make it ridiculously easy to show your photos/videos to friends (just project them on a wall). Would also allow giving presentations on the go (important business use-case).

- Solar panels: for emergency recharging.

- Radio receiver: not only for listening to the radio, but also for developing integrations between the iphone and remote control devices that use radio frequency

3 comments

Me too, and I was also hoping for a pony.

I don't think anyone ever predicted there was any chance of a waterproof design, projector, solar panels, or a radio receiver. I get being disappointed that Apple doesn't include the features you want, but why hope for things that are almost certainly never going to happen?

My thinking is that a company that has $117 billion in cash reserves should be able to make a device that has seemingly impossible features, rather than simple incremental improvements.

It's not just what you put into it, but what you keep out that makes it special. More features means more weight, potentially lower battery life, more cost, etc. etc.

At WWDC, in the external accessory and core bluetooth talks, they make mention that they would prefer to see bluetooth 4.0 LE profiles for payment systems, and other NFC type applications. I think this is a big reason they feel they don't need NFC.

The Core Bluetooth framework is definitely worth looking at if you are interested in iPhone external connectivity stuff.

I was gonna write asking if you are sarcastic, but the solar panel thingy settled the case.