It was the best timing possible for me. My Orange contract was up in less than a month, and Apple go and sell their flagship mobile talkie device on a service provider other than O2. Rejoicing occured.

Before jumping ship on my Nokia n95 8GB, I considered the drawbacks;

  • Poor camera in comparison. Ah, I don’t use it that much anyway.
  • Storage limited to iTunes. That 16GB iPhone may be twice the capacity, but I can’t just wang any old files on it. I’ll have to get a passport hard drive for that now.
  • Applications aren’t (neccessarily) free. You could stick pretty much any application on that Nokia. I could even play Secret of Monkey Island!
  • Would the syncing and backup of calendars, emails and texts work as well?
  • Battery life. I got ~5 days from the Nokia. The iPhone is a lot less.

Then there were the advantages;

  • All data included in tariff. Internet anywhere with a signal and nothing extra to pay? Brilliant.
  • Great screen for watching TV and movies. Basically a bundled media player with the phone.
  • Great design, and the touch screen interface. My 3 year old boy can use it to play games on. The interface is so intuitive that he learnt to swipe to a new screen without even being shown.

So after a good few months of use, the things I’ve realised my next iPhone needs, if I’m going to get one, are;

  • I use the camera a lot more than I thought. It needs to be better. A lot better.
  • I don’t mind charging it everyday during the week on my PC, but weekends I can struggle. Longer battery life please. 2 days instead of 1 is all I’m asking.
  • Oh, and a louder speakerphone would be nice.

That’s it. Nothing outrageous. These are all hardware based, for lack of a better word, requests. So, if Apple can do just these 3 things, I may well get the next generation iPhone. Let’s see what they can do.

Disclaimer
This statement will not prevent me from changing my mind in the future if something better comes along. This is a completely personal opinion on the way I use my phone on a daily basis, and what I’m looking for from a mobile phone.

I’m fully aware other people have different requirements from their mobiel phone. They should always choose a phone on their own needs and weigh the pros and cons.

Unless they’re a blindly obedient fanboy.