I've always felt the iPhone screen was a bit too small relative to the rest of the phone. Given that it has an IPS display now, it's great quality for watching movies on the go but they always play back so small. So here is a mockup of a widescreen iPhone, the original is bottom right:
In icon view, they can integrate the search box up top and have persistent notifications below. When there are no notifications, the dock just sits lower down and when there are too many, the items just scroll vertically.
These spaces can be reserved inside applications for these tasks but hidden. Games can use the extra space to keep controls further away from the centre of the display. Apps can be built with the same resolution for compatibility with other devices but have the option to use the space for extra data that wouldn't be present on other devices or would usually be in a hidden panel.
Spotlight is always present on the Mac so why not the iPhone? If you are in a twitter app and need to get an email address, you can tap the search box and search for a name, then get the contact details to show up and copy/paste it in place without leaving the app. Same deal if you need a picture attached to an email or do a quick calculation. Even use it as a quick launcher like QuickSilver so you don't have to go back to the home screen, you just tap the box and type the first few letters and it shows the icon to tap.
For movies, the screen would end up as 640p (1138 x 640) so 16:9 movies would fill the entire display without cropping and with Super Panavision movies like Star Wars ep 6 shown above, you would be sure not to miss important scenes like where Hans Solo touches Leia inappropriately. On the current iPhone 4 in the bottom right, you might miss it because it's scaled down so much.
It makes reading web pages better too obviously.
The home button I'd like to see changed from a mechanical button to capacitive (like the XBox 360) and reduced by 25%. It's the most used button on the device and most prone to wear, especially with multi-tasking. You'd simply do a double-tap of the capacitive button instead for the app switcher and tap then tap-hold to go home. It might be subject to accidental presses but I think it would be ok being smaller, concave and using double-tap gestures. The capacitive part can be inside the little white marker.
A physical camera button wouldn't go amiss either. It's annoying taking a picture trying to hold it as steady as possible and fumbling for the touch button. Optical image stabilisation would be good too using motion compensation in the sensor - the gyroscope and accelerometer just feed the info to it.
A final improvement would be the dock connector, which I feel should be a smaller micro-USB 3 plug or upcoming Light Peak connector that is recessed into the device to allow a more secure connection and also to give more room for the speakers, which are easily covered in landscape mode.
They can obviously redesign the antenna with this model too.
In icon view, they can integrate the search box up top and have persistent notifications below. When there are no notifications, the dock just sits lower down and when there are too many, the items just scroll vertically.
These spaces can be reserved inside applications for these tasks but hidden. Games can use the extra space to keep controls further away from the centre of the display. Apps can be built with the same resolution for compatibility with other devices but have the option to use the space for extra data that wouldn't be present on other devices or would usually be in a hidden panel.
Spotlight is always present on the Mac so why not the iPhone? If you are in a twitter app and need to get an email address, you can tap the search box and search for a name, then get the contact details to show up and copy/paste it in place without leaving the app. Same deal if you need a picture attached to an email or do a quick calculation. Even use it as a quick launcher like QuickSilver so you don't have to go back to the home screen, you just tap the box and type the first few letters and it shows the icon to tap.
For movies, the screen would end up as 640p (1138 x 640) so 16:9 movies would fill the entire display without cropping and with Super Panavision movies like Star Wars ep 6 shown above, you would be sure not to miss important scenes like where Hans Solo touches Leia inappropriately. On the current iPhone 4 in the bottom right, you might miss it because it's scaled down so much.
It makes reading web pages better too obviously.
The home button I'd like to see changed from a mechanical button to capacitive (like the XBox 360) and reduced by 25%. It's the most used button on the device and most prone to wear, especially with multi-tasking. You'd simply do a double-tap of the capacitive button instead for the app switcher and tap then tap-hold to go home. It might be subject to accidental presses but I think it would be ok being smaller, concave and using double-tap gestures. The capacitive part can be inside the little white marker.
A physical camera button wouldn't go amiss either. It's annoying taking a picture trying to hold it as steady as possible and fumbling for the touch button. Optical image stabilisation would be good too using motion compensation in the sensor - the gyroscope and accelerometer just feed the info to it.
A final improvement would be the dock connector, which I feel should be a smaller micro-USB 3 plug or upcoming Light Peak connector that is recessed into the device to allow a more secure connection and also to give more room for the speakers, which are easily covered in landscape mode.
They can obviously redesign the antenna with this model too.
