Core77

Humans need changes. People will always want upgrades. There will always have people willing to pay for a new one. What could slow them down would be the guilt-free affluence. I'm sure Apple has already thought about that.

What if Frog hired me to find those answers?

"What if you subscribed to the iPhone instead of owning it?
What if the iPhone was guaranteed for life?
What if you never bought another phone?
What if Apple really decided to think differently?

(What would you be willing to pay for a Continuously-Upgraded-iPhone-for-Life? I would love to hear your answers...)"

F*cking brilliant ideas. I've been contemplating getting one, but just won't make the commitment for the very reasons listed at the beginning of the post.

Some things you wonder how they can be improved upon. The iPhone looks and feels wonderful. It's a screen and a button trimmed (for now) in chrome. What else can you do with that? I personally wouldn't mind seeing this design persist for many years.

Sadly, since it is just a screen and a button, most of its competitors will end up looking just like it as well (*cough* Zune HD). How will you differentiate your product? SOFTWARE.

Great approach for maybe the next 5(?) years, but in the next 10-15 years we might be able to make a display area that deforms to create tactile buttons that move (or any shapes and motion that the programmer wants to use), with force-feedback, (how about turning the entire product surface into a visually and tactile addressable surface?)... and maybe the whole phone and display bends and folds completely, enabling a much larger display and sketch/notes area... stuff like this means the hardware development story isn't over yet... or at least I don't want a 'lifetime' contract on the same hardware, but a flexible upgrade path would be great..

What if the electronics could be stomped down into a format like an over-sized SD card? Keep the same body + screen, and when you want to upgrade speed and such, just buy a new electronics card and slide it in an expansion slot. Same goes for battery and hard drive. Then you wouldn't have to send it in to be upgraded....

goldscott: you are a case in point. the smartphone market is rapidly catching up to apple. just look at the Pre. time to lock in our loyalty. key is software and appstore. ongoing revenue for life. I would gladly commit to a 5 year upgrade cycle for my iPhone. no need to switch. but I dont want to have to buy another handset. it is just a glass slab after all.

Don't worry. As they say on the PGA tour commercials. These guys are good. The OS 3.0 software alone made enough strides for now. Expect 4.0 hardware to look somewhat different. And evolve into tablets, etc.

Nerds.

good points. especially the last one...Apple does need to start living again by it's old motto. As much as they may make things somewhat better than their competitors, they are FAAAAR from where they could be. Everytime they release a new product, they miss the mark on some key points. They justify it by stating the fact that it's still better than most.

I think what they really need is some people on staff and beta testers that are more critical of their design decisions and the human factors involved in them. Ok enough typing..my wrists are hurting from my new macbook pro and the glare/relection is giving me a headache.

More to the point:

What if iPhone could actually make a call without crashing?
What if iPhone had a button on the side to answer a call when the screen has crashed stopping you from using the slider?

I do love iPhone, but I didn't get one because while it's amazing and has great apps and is totally genius...it's so useless as a phone. :(