Things my next phone should have

After looking at the iPhone 5, I see people saying that phones already have everything they need... nothing new will happen. That's completely absurd. There are tons of little things, for instance I want a browser that can do everything the PC browsers can do. But there are also HUGE changes needed. Here are some things that I want for my phone:

• Talk to it. Today I *almost* have this: my Jellybean-based phone can perform near real-time voice recognition (without a network connection). But the error rate is still high enough that after adding in the time to go back and correct errors the whole process takes longer than typing it in on the device's keyboard. But not much longer... I expect this one very soon.
• Context aware. My phone should know when it's OK to ring, and when it isn't (if I'm in a meeting or a movie). While I'm driving, it shouldn't send me texts. When I start asking for directions it should guess (with a degree of accuracy) where I might want to go to.
• Expandable screen. I want an iPad sized screen, but I want it to fit in my pocket. The only way to do that is to have an expandable or pull-out screen of some sort, or perhaps a projector.
• Keyboard. Something real that I can type on -- keyboards are SO amazingly effective. But I don't like carrying around a bluetooth keyboard (they're either too small to type on or too big to carry comfortably).

Posted Fri 21 September 2012 by mcherm in Technology