For a company so famous for their beautifully designed and solidly built hardware, it’s ironic that the key to the success of the iPhone is its software. Entering the cellphone market, Apple undoubtedly took a risk; laptops and desktop computers, for all their development budget, are relatively straightforward. Slap the latest processor inside, shave a few milimetres off the chassis, and people will hand over their money. Cellphones, though, are more personal - less powerful than a PC or Mac, certainly, but the demands for intuitive control and flexibility are far greater. The iPhone may not have had the latest components, but the user experience proved a revelation. Slick industrial design will only take you so far; it won’t persuade millions to tie themselves to 24-month contracts. No, for that you need a handset that’s almost addictive in use.

WWDC 2008 Live CoverageCome June 9, Apple will upset the status quo again, with the launch of iPhone 2; while many hoped Steve Jobs would announce a 3G iPhone, or an iPhone with a better camera, even unfettered Bluetooth, the firmware update is perhaps more important again. It answers not only the criticisms of analysts and pundits - keen to marginalise the handset into “smartphone” or “fashion phone” niches - but the demands of both the user base and the potential user base. Current owners, already hooked on the iPhone’s ease of use in, say, messaging, will be overwhelmed with the introduction of Microsoft Exchange compatibility and its push-email, syncronised calendars and more. Meanwhile, would-be Enterprise owners, up until now settling for RIM’s sober BlackBerry range, will have an option that pulls at the lust strings rather than simply the bottom line.

With 100,000 SDK downloads in the first four days - not to mention an official developer programme so successful that they’ve had to shortlist many applicants - there’s little doubt that the launch of iPhone 2 will see the new app store bulging with third-party software. Considering that the Mac has been traditionally seen as short-changed when it came to new software (compared to its Windows rival), the iPhone is Apple’s chance to thrust OS X development into the spotlight. iPhone 2 is feasibly an entry point for new programmers to begin Apple coding; after all, they were keen to highlight in their Roadmap event that the app framework, Cocoa, is identical to that of OS X-proper, only with added touchscreen APIs. The source code editor, Xcode, is also the same, meaning that developers getting to grips with the iPhone platform are temptingly close to producing apps for Mac desktops and laptops.

The whole iPhone 20 experience will be channeled through Apple; acting as one part broker, one part gatekeeper, the company will host and distribute new software for the cellphone as well as offer the reassurance that potentially dangerous apps will be weeded out. Acquiring new programs will be as simple as downloading a new track from iTunes, and you can expect to see the same sort of title recommendation in place too. Unlike iTunes, though, the bulk of the software is likely to be free; Apple’s $100m developer fund is an obvious attempt to foster development without costs being passed down to the end-user.

So what does iPhone 2 really mean? Well, it means a major threat to RIM’s BlackBerry and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platforms, taking the alluring Apple GUI and backing it up with efficient and usable Enterprise functionality. It also means a more flexible consumer experience, bridging the gap between cute-but-clumsy high-end cellphones from the mainstream manufacturers and capable-but-crude smartphones. And you can bet your life that, once they’ve wowed us with the software that makes up iPhone 2.0, they’ll wheel out the updated hardware to match it; think 3G, GPS and all the rest. With Firmware 20, Apple will finally give the iPhone the brains to match its good looks.

Here’s a laundry list of what we WANT from the 3G iPhone 2! We’re not saying that the first gen-iPhone is bad, we just want the iPhone 2 to have 3G, GPS, thinner, lighter, better battery life and not priced too high.

  • Faster Network (3G). The original iPhone wasn’t 3G when it launched last year thanks to various issues, two of which were cost and battery life. 3G chips now have increased battery life and lower costs compared to what was out in 2007.
  • Price the iPhone 2 cheaper than $399! Apple’s already dropped the price of the phone once. We’d like to see them do it again. With component costs down and Apple capable of using just about the same parts (other than a 3G and GPS chip plus more memory and upgraded processing) as the first version, there’s probably some slack to be had. AT&T can also help subsidize the iPhone 2 dropping the cost down to $199 levels if Apple were to put even more measures in place forcing people who buy phones to sign up for AT&T (and not run off with it to other countries to be unlocked).
  • Unlockable and Jailbreakable iPhone 2. Just because the SDK is coming doesn’t mean we don’t still have a need to jailbreak our iPhones. Jailbreak, for one, because there are still many apps worth using that Apple will frown upon. Unlock, for two, because T-Mobile users and other countries still don’t have native iPhone support. Apple will actively fight the unlockers and jailbreakers, but we hope the hacking community prevails in the end.
  • Better Battery. The iPhone’s battery isn’t bad, but if you talk a lot, use a Bluetooth headset, or theoretically use 3G and a GPS, that battery’s not going to last a day. Out of all the features a next-gen iPhone 20 can get, an improved battery is the one that will be felt by everybody.
  • The iPhone 2 MUST have GPS. The current cellphone triangulation location system is fine, I guess, but it’s no GPS. Place it into a dock that’s specially made for your car (places the phone up in your eyeline, charges it, routes audio through your car’s speakers) and it’ll be as good as a regular GPS. If you’re lost on foot, whip it out and locate yourself. It’s not as good as a dedicated GPS, but it’s good enough that most people won’t know the difference. Hell, GPS manufacturers are already scared.
  • The iPhone 2 MUST have an improved camera. The current 2-megapixel shooter is decent in ample light, but falls to Ewe Boll levels of visual atrocity when it comes to shooting in low-light. Maybe a flash? Maybe just a better sensor? We want to be able not have to move everyone next to a window to take a shot. Or ripping lampshades off your fixtures. Or bringing a Maglite to bars. While we’re at it, why not some digital image stabilization.
  • Front facing video camera. AT&T’s 3G video calling (video share) service is not so good right now, mostly because it’s only one-way. Two iPhones with two front-facing cameras, beaming video to each other like a webcam chat on your desktop would be amazing, and it would go along way into mainstreaming video calling. This would go over well in other countries where video calling is slightly more popular, despite Nokia’s reservations.
  • Current iPhone doesn’t feature MMS and video recording so that being said, iPhone 20 MUST offer them. The iPhone’s gotten its multi-recipient SMS feature (something many reviewers docked points off for in their initial reviews) added after the fact, but video recording and MMS sending is slightly more difficult to pull off. We want the 3G iPhone, with its beefed up processing power and improved camera, to give us a feature that’s in just about every decent smartphone in the last few years.
  • Not a must but would be nice for iPhone 2 to have a flush headphone jack. No more lousy adapters just to get our headphones into the headphone port! This should have been the way it was in the first-gen iPhone.
  • 32GB should be standard on the iPhone 20. The launch storage size of 4GB and 8GB was pretty tiny, and the current 8GB and 16GB is usable, but not great. I’d like to see 16GB and 32GB options in this generation, gradually growing to 32GB and 64GB by the next iteration, and so forth until we can keep our whole computer backup there by the year 2015. Seeing as the iPhone is THE one device you want to carry with you everywhere, you’ll need more and more space to shove those pictures, videos and music files.
  • Cut, Copy and Paste is an absolute MUST HAVE on iPhone 20. We’d like to take content from a website or email and paste it into a form or the address book or a text message. Apple has smart tech that allows you to click on phone numbers in web pages in Safari and call them, but moving general info between apps has been impossible. This is really a no brainer. We need cut, copy and paste in the iPhone.
  • Yeah, this one goes without saying…Automatic 3G Management. To deal with the battery suck of 3G in the iPhone, I’d love it if it automatically turned on only for active browsing in Safari, watching YouTube videos, looking stuff up in Maps and downloading music from the iTunes Store. For background checks on Mail, Weather and Stocks, it should toggle down to 2G.
  • A2DP, Stereo Bluetooth streaming. Bluetooth audio streaming hasn’t picked up in the mainstream on devices because it’s just another piece of tech that can run down your phone’s battery, but given the iPhone’s iPod-ness, it it makes sense to also pipe A2DP stereo music through that BT connection.
  • Over the Air Sync. I like Apple’s tethered sync system, which also gives you an opportunity to charge your iPhone using your PC. What would also be cool is a secure over the LAN Wi-Fi sync, a la Apple TV and Zune, so you can charge your iPhone in a dock or something but still sync data. Likewise, a PDA-type over the air sync would be great over 3G when you’re in the wild. This would skip over all the audio and video stuff, but would keep your calendar in line with .Mac, or your home computer-and also back up any changes you’ve made on the go.
  • Better Reception and Voice Quality. The two are related, but not 100%. Switching an AT&T SIM between a Blackberry, Palm, Sony Ericsson and iPhone shows the iPhone’s voice quality to be the weakest. The current iPhone also randomly drops all bars in the middle of calls for Brian Lam on a very consistent basis. Reception is not good on the iPhone.
  • A CDMA iPhone 2 For Sprint and Verizon. This “ain’t gonna happen” but hey, we can ask. We know it’s not going to happen because of AT&T’s exclusivity deal, but half the people in the US wish the iPhone were available on Sprint or Verizon or Alltel or Nextel.

Of course, Apple probably won’t put all these features into the 3G iPhone because of two reasons we can come up with. One, they most likely want people to have an upgrade path, and two, they need time to develop these to a usable state. In essence, you should pick a handful of features here that you really want and hope those are those are the ones Apple will put in.