New iPhone - Some Predictions

The rumours (confirmed by people with reliable sources, which normally means Apple itself) say that Apple will announce the new iPhone on 12th September (to ship 19th Sept.) just over eleven months after the launch of the iPhone 4S. The rumours also say that the new iPhone will have a larger display (iOS 6 includes features for handling taller, but not wider, apps on the iPhone), the same basic physical shape (and probably exactly the same outline) and a completely new dock connector. All of this makes sense but what other changes might we see in the hardware of the new iPhone? Here are my predictions, which you should most definitely take them with a large shovel of salt because I've never been right about these things in the past.

LTE - now relatively common in Android handsets, LTE hasn't yet made an appearance in the iPhone, apparently because the chipsets consume too much power and shorten battery life by an unacceptable amount. I expect LTE to appear in the new iPhone using either a new, low-power chipset or some very cunning engineering to give the phone at least as much battery life as the 4S.

128Gb Storage - the last two iPhones (and the iPod Touch) have topped out at 64Gb and now seems like a good time to make another jump. Is there any point going beyond 128Gb? Not this year, certainly, but maybe in 2014-15.

Improved cameras - it isn't all about resolution. The camera on the iPhone 4S is simply brilliant but I predict Apple to at least tweak both the optics and the sensor to further improve performance. We might see a leap to 10Mp and a new set of lenses for the main camera and I think we are also likely to see the front-facing camera improved to allow hi-res FaceTime, which would be great over a 4G connection.

Faster CPU and GPU - nobody could accuse the 4S of being slow but Moore's law marches inevitably onwards dragging even mobile devices in its wake. Expect improvements in this area although I doubt we'll see quad-core overkill.

Updated wifi - incorporating the latest wifi standards seems like an obvious thing to do, especially after recent bumps to the specifications of Apple's wifi routers.

NFC - a programmable NFC chip that could do service as a smart card or credit card would be an ideal partner for Wallet, the new iOS 6 feature for managing payment and reward cards. Personally, I'd like to be able to use my phone as an Oyster card or a payment card so that I can cut down on the stuff I carry everyday.

None of this is particularly revolutionary - it's all been done in other phones that are currently on the market - but it'll be interesting to see what Apple come up with and how they work everything together. With any luck they'll also have something special to add to the mix that nobody has predicted; anyone want to bet?

iOS 6 Feature Requests

iOS 6.0 arrives later in the year, probably at the same time as the next iPhone (rumoured to be announced on September 12th, name unknown but unlikely to be called "iPhone 5"). I've written before about features I would like added to iOS and each year a few of my requests are delivered. Here is this year's list.

First up, I want left and right cursor keys on the standard keyboard. Some applications (Diet Coda, for example) have these buttons and they save a fantastic amount of frustration and effort when trying to place the cursor - their presence effectively ends the need for repeated cursor placement attempts, allowing you quickly to correct placement errors caused by last minute movement as you lift your finger.

Personal hotspot, the ability to use wifi to share a data connection with other devices, is a very useful feature and it does exactly what you'd expect. I'd like to know more about the devices connecting to my phone, including their names, the amount of data they've used this session, length of time connected and so on. In essence, I want to know which devices are connecting to my wifi and how they're using it.

It's not unusual for iOS to ask for your Apple or other password. Unfortunately, because the dialogues can pop up according to iOS's needs rather than in response to user actions, it isn't always possible to see why the password is needed. To fix this, login dialogue boxes should clearly show which services they work for, maybe by putting an icon in the window so that it is easy to tell that you logging in to FaceTime rather than iMessages.

A recurring favourite on these lists, widgets on the home or lock screen have long been a strong feature in Android and it would be nice to see something similar in iOS. The ability quickly to review upcoming appointments, reminders, weather forecasts and even share prices would be most welcome, even if it meant relegating the familiar icons and folders to a second screen.

The notification centre introduced in iOS 5 went a long way toward delivering a decent system for notifications and was clearly a huge improvement over the previous implementation. That said, there are further improvements to be made before this feature could be considered complete.

We already know that Facebook integration is coming in iOS 6 (and as an update to Mountain Lion at around the same time) and this is most welcome (although it's unclear that posting more stuff to Facebook will actually improve anyone's life). Hopefully these features will enable cross platform contact management and unification because contact duplication can make contact lists unnecessarily long and difficult to use. It would be nice to have improved contact de-duplication or merging features but I suspect these would sit better in a desktop app.

So that's my list for this year. My wish list of new hardware features will follow (probably next week). Thanks for reading.

London 2012 Olympics - Part II

Wow. The London 2012 Olympic games are a triumph. At the time of writing (Sunday morning, 12th August) Team GB have won 62 medals (including 28 golds) with more to come today as the competition draws to a close, making it our most successful games since 1908 (when we had an embarrassingly large medal haul). 

For a small country on the edge of Europe, finishing third in the medal table behind America and China is something of an achievement and one in which the whole country can take pride. Our elite athletes, the coaches and their support teams, the products of a sporting system that has been utterly transformed over recent years, have exceeded both their own targets and our expectations, burying the rampant pre-games cynicism in a shower of medals.

So what's next? After the final day of competition and the closing ceremony (a great excuse for a party) this evening comes the Paralympic Games, starting 29th August. It may not receive the TV and Internet coverage of the main Games but the Paralympics should still provide an extraordinary  sporting spectacle. Our athletes deserve the same level of the support seen in the main games and hopefully they'll be able to enjoy a similar level of success.

After that we have the long buildup to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where, I suspect, Team GB will try to better their 2012 haul. Their ability to do this is directly related to the funding the team receives, so David Cameron's announcement that the Government's funding of UK sport will continue until at least 2016 (albeit at the current level - inflation will force the organising bodies to make some tough decisions over the next few years if they can't make up the difference with lottery funds or private sponsorship) is very welcome. 

And what of the cost of the 2012 games? Hosting the games cost an estimated £9bn, which isn't a small amount of money for a country stuck in recession. As a showcase for Britain, and especially for London, the games have been fantastic. The volunteers, resplendent in their pink and purple outfits, did a great job and provided an uncharacteristically friendly welcome to visitors to the games and, at least in London, unprecedented help to tourists; they've been brilliant and we should applaud them (I hope they get a special mention in the closing ceremony).

The prophesied security problems, even after the debacle with G4S and the last-minute drafting of thousands of extra troops, didn't materialise and there haven't been, as far as I know, any issues at all (and the anti-aircraft missiles, thankfully, haven't been needed).

Overall, despite whatever worries the naysayers might have had about the costs or the undesirability of the games or LOCOG's performance, everything seems to have gone fantastically well. I'm looking forward to seeing what Brasil, and Team GB (I've got used to seeing large numbers of GB medals on the table), can do in Rio in 2016. 

London 2012 Olympics - Part I

We are now halfway through the London 2012 Olympic games and despite heavy cynicism and last-minute problems, it looks like it will be remembered as a triumph, a great exhibition of sportsmanship (if we ignore the badminton) and organisation. There have been some great moments, particularly in the athletics yesterday, that it is difficult to know what to mention, but here are a few of my favourites so far:

• Opening ceremony - a humorous celebration of all things British, a fantastic parade of athletes and a touching torch lighting ceremony. Danny Boyle and his team did a great job. 
• Jessica Ennis winning the heptathlon, Mo Farah taking gold in the 10,000m and Greg Rutherford winning the long jump to give us the most amazing evening of sporting success in a very long time. 
• Andy Triggs Hodge, Pete Reed, Andy Gregory and Tom James led from the start of the men's four to add another gold in the rowing. 
• Sophie Hosking and Katherine Copeland winning the women's lightweight double sculls and being quite astonished by their own success - the expressions on their faces when they realised they'd won were priceless. 
• Laura Trott, Dani King and Jo Rowsell taking gold in cycling's team pursuit and destroying the United States in the process. Setting a sixth successive world record at the same time was just the icing on the cake. 
• Andy Murray reaching the finals of the men's singles and, with Laura Robson, the final of the mixed doubles. 

All our medal winners have put in a tremendous amount of effort and it's great to see so much success. Even when they aren't winning gold (and silver or bronze, at this level of international competition, must surely represent significant achievements) they're giving it everything they've got (and here I'm thinking of the heroic efforts of Rebecca Adlington and the men's lightweight double sculls duo of Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter).

Today, day 9, holds much promise and anticipation. Whatever the outcomes (and it could be another great day), Team GB is providing a spectacle the likes of which we have never seen before and the crowds are clearly appreciative of their efforts, as they should be. The roars of approval that fill the venues whenever a British competitor enters the field show a level of engagement in the experience that few would have predicted in the run-up to the games.

And what about the park and the venues? The Olympic park looks stunning and I can't wait to visit (Monday for the synchronised swimming). The permanent structures, especially the velodrome and the main stadium, look fantastic. Even the temporary venues, like the archery range at Lord's, look great (although it's a pity the Paralympic Archery won't be held there).

Overall, a great first week and I'm a lot more impressed with both the sporting achievements and the organisation of the games than I thought I would be. Congratulations to everyone involved - you've done a fantastic job and made the whole country proud.