Just curious, what specifically were you hoping for - from a product that is 17-years old?

There is lots of things were competition is ahead of them or things they could improve:

- 90W fast wired charging, 80W wireless charging - many android phone have it

- reverse charging - so that in emergency when you forgot to charge airpods and you already outside you could charge a little bit enough for a run - again some androids have it

- stylus support - still would be nice to get apple pencil for some signatures etc

- fingerprint reader either under display or on side button like on ipad air - sometimes when phone is sitting on the table it's easier to unlock with finger than pick it up and point at your face then put it back (especially annoying for iOS devs)

- irda led for controlling air con in hotel - they have already IR blaster on front and maybe even on lidar that they could potentially hack it similar like they hacked screen for flash.

- temperature sensor and humidity sensor

- IR temperature sensor for checking your body temperature or stuff you baking in the oven

- tiny thermal camera sensor for inspecting leaks in house for the winter

- microsd support (yes can dream can I?)

- any improvements for lidar quality or truedepth

- another programmable button on the left side for lefties

- 250GB storage by default

- 12GB RAM

- bluetooth 5.4

- thread protocol support like HomePod

> IR temperature sensor for checking your body temperature or stuff you baking in the oven

> tiny thermal camera sensor for inspecting leaks in house for the winter

So just a thermometer gun? It costs like $20-30 on amazon and I've never needed one other than in my home / kitchen. Why in the world do you want a phone for this haha.

I do think I've found the perfect car for you: https://tenor.com/view/homer-simpsons-car-gif-8120474

On that topic, I would have liked a new AirPods Pro to be able to monitor my body temperature through my ears, while I'm working out.

It would be nice to have constant monitoring against a baseline as well, to alert people when a fever might be breaking out.

If they are producing and selling it on amazon means someone buying it even if you don't need it. Body temperature check definitely would be handy. Those sensors definitely don't cost $20-30. I had CC1350 SensorTag and it already had that for retail price also around ~$35 (but altogether with 10 different sensors inside and that bought 10 years ago).

They also sell smart outlets, back massagers, and garden sprinklers on Amazon. That doesn't imply people would find them handy in their phone.

I think it'd be an easier pitch in the watch though as that's where they are already shoving most of the health sensors (and have wrist temperature monitoring already).

I read that first part in 2007 Steve Ballmer's voice.

You can also read it in 2015 Tim Cook's 3D touch announcement voice or Zu announcing the ZTE device with a 3D screen in 2017 or whoever at LG announced the wide angle lens, got meh to bad reviews about it, and then it took off afterward anyways.

My point here is I'm not saying it can't ever be something anyone would want because of that rather something selling in another device on Amazon has no weight one way or the other on whether it'd be a good thing to add to a phone.

There's lots of devices that can do all sorts of things, but not needing a separate device was their point

I'd add "10x optical zoom"

Sounds like USB-C iPhones have 'reverse charging' but not wirelessly. Default storage is just a pricepoint thing, IMO.

The big LOL moment for me was when I connected my iPhone to my MacBook and it started charging the laptop from the phone.

I've always wondered how you or it chooses which charges from which!

You might have clicked a notification on either device on accidently and set it the wrong direction.

When you first connect, the power capabilities are negotiated and usually the more powerful device takes on the "source" role while the other gets to be the "sink".

This can be dynamically controlled and switched back and forth so some devices have UI to select what to do.

They could also take a step towards a more conscious engagement with the environment by allowing to replace batteries or other parts. That would win them a very good deal of press nowadays, even if it is not strictly tech-related.

Looks like they are super-uber risk-averse and there is 0% new ideas with these products.

You can get a new battery for your iphone, you just have to pay someone to do it. Costs about 10% of the phone price.

> microsd support

Yes, this is the first thing I look for in a smartphone. Maybe next year, Apple?

WiFi 7 Bluetooth 6 (yes it was just announced but Apple was aware and part of development so they could launch it)

At this point its just sad that its spec bumps on what imo is a pretty poor iteration of their own product. They had better ideas in the past that I wish they would rehash just for the sake of offering more skus to choose from vs "small and large." I liked 3d touch. I liked touchid. I liked having a headphone jack. I liked a small and lightweight phone. I liked a phone that actually sat flat on a table. It's just a shame that this is clearly never going to be made by them today, and being reminded of this through yet another paltry spec bump with stingy storage offerings that's been all too typical from this company with this product lately.

It sounds like you'd rather sacrifice Function over Form ... in which case - the iPhone SE checks most of your boxes.

Note: I don't disagree with what you're saying. But Apple also creates multiple models for different users desires, and it sounds like you're most closely aligned to the iPhone SE target market (not the iPhone base or Pro).

I currently do actually use an iphone se 2. But honestly its a worse device than the old se 1 in my drawer that I used when the se2 was in the shop not too long ago. The only issue was modern apps were not compatible with whatever ios version it was on. Otherwise, it was surprisingly faster. spotlight search was appreciably faster, without any delay vs the se2 that just hangs for about 2 seconds before returning any results. mobile web felt great although the smaller screen would often be reduced to a postage stamp of readable space after banner and footer and other ads gobble up the rest of it. It felt much better in the hand and in the pocket. Headphone jack of course.

And what is worse about this se line is that I know it is temporary. They won't be building them out of new old stock iphone 8 parts forever. That will run dry like the old iphone 5 supply lines the se1 used did, which forced its obsolescence. Eventually I will be shunted into these newer, heavier, wobbly bottomed iphones, due to forced obsolescence in either the apps I use or the actual carrier network protocols.

Oh god are we really still going on about the fucking headphone jack?

Always. Pretty stupid omission and I'm not going to pretend like I don't miss it.

Not that it was ever in the rumour mills, but smaller, thinner and longer battery life would have been nice.

Some ideas: -change screen ratio, increase width against height, like an iPad.

-Why are iPads and iPhones treated so differently? I want to use a pen on the phone and make a phone call on the tablet.

-Double screen, not foldable, but two screens like an open book. I could see a lot of useful applications like showing lists on one screen, details on the other, or a good ereader. In landscape, have a writing app on top and a touch keyboard on the bottom screen.

-Slide the phone into a laptop-like shell and run desktop apps with MacOS. It's the same processor the macs have, no?

-Likewise, attach to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and run desktop apps.

Edit: Linebreaks.

a built in laser projector would have a wow factor and I think apple could have pulled something off (e.g. this article is from 2022 https://www.wileyindustrynews.com/en/news/worlds-smallest-pr...)

imagine at work projecting from iphone work slides or whiteboards at work or videos/games indoor at home on a white wall etc (apple loves accessories, and the potential for accessories on this would be huge as well)

I've never owned an Android but I'm extremely curious about the Pixel Pro 9 Fold. That would really change how I use a phone in my day to day life. Presumably, Apple will get around to doing it too at some point.

I got it last week and it's great. My main concerns were the older (pixel 7 generation) camera and the battery life. Both have exceeded my expectations, the massive screen is great for browsing and someone even got debian on there (https://old.reddit.com/r/PixelFold/comments/1fcn4du/fullblow...), and it's fairly thin and light even with a case on.

I just got one and moved to Android after being an iPhone user for like 10 years. This is the biggest leap in smartphones IMO, the big screen on demand is such a huge feature