There’s an interesting article on ReadWriteWeb about how the iPhone 5 could/will be completely redesigned.
It will feature a new design, which I’m not sure I agree with the necessity of. The reason for doing this might be that all of the bad press they got from “Antennagate” (the most retarded discussion of all time) will be turned into something positive: Showing that Apple listened to the feedback and changed the design (albeit unnecessarily from a design and technology standpoint).
However, what is most interesting about RWW’s article are the acquisitions Apple have made over the past year or more, and how they might fit into the design:
- Apple hired Benjamin Vigier, an NFC-expert, and they’ve made several patents related to payments systems revolving around NFC
- Siri will enable the iPhone to understand more natural language queries, and could do so from every app that wants to use it
- iTunes will finally be a streaming-service, built on the work Lala.com started before being acquired.
The whole article is worth reading, if only to get a reasonable take on how the future might be shaped for the iPhone (disregard the last paragraph about whether Tim Cook can take over for Steve in the presentation—he’s done it before, and he’ll do it again, I’m sure).
I already use the iPhone for looking up trivia about the movie I’m watching, what the food I’m eating is good for and what’s the story about that building I walk past every day. Being able to get even closer to the relevant information instantly (“that’s a great song on the radio—let me listen to it again”) will only make it much more of a Metadata Machine.