iPhone 5S

Now that the iPhone 5 is out, it's time to start predicting what will be in next year's iPhone 5S.  

• It'll look pretty much identical as has been the case with all the *S models.  
• Camera may get a slight increase in MP, but really it's getting high enough, better sensors as usual though.  
• Faster as always.
• Still no NFC.  (Because I've never seen anywhere I could use NFC to buy things or do anything.  Apple doesn't do "checklist" items just to do them, they wait to do them right.)

None of those are that huge, I'd guess the bigger thing will be increase in the capacity.   32/64/128GB sizes.

It'll be interesting to see when the speed/battery trade off starts to switch the other way.  This year they went for doubling the speed while keeping the battery life the same.  What if next year it is a minor speed increase, but doubles the battery life?

Maps

Apple maps might not be as good as google's yet. (Though around Seattle they've looked perfect).

Google may be laughing now, but they'd be wise to remember that when the first iPhone came out, the list of things everyone said were missing was huge. Microsoft, Blackberry/RIM, Nokia all laughed at what it didn't do too.

iPad mini/air weights again

Now that the iPhone 5 details are public, I thought I'd redo the math for the weight-per-volume using those new numbers.

The iPad 3 is 25.7 cubic inches (in³) and a weight of 23 oz.  For 0.89 oz/in³.
The iPad 2 is 23.6 in³ and a weight of 21.3 oz.  For 0.90 oz/in³.
The new iPhone 5 is 3.38 in³ and a weight of 3.95 oz.  That's a slightly higher 1.16 oz/in³.  

Using the predicted iPad mini/air size in inches of 7.78 x 5.31 x 0.28 is 11.57 in³....

Using an iPad density gives a weight of 10.3 oz (292 grams) on the low end and an iPhone 5 density give 13.4 oz (380 grams) on the high end.

Even the higher number is less than the weight of the new 7" Kindle Fire HD (13.9 oz).

I'm still guessing closer to the iPad density and a bit over 10 oz.  But even on the high end, its still less than the competition.

iPhone ∞

Go look here.  Look at the pictures of the Porsche 911 over the past 40+ years.  The details change a bit, but you look at any one of them and you recognize it is a Porsche.

They slowly evolve and improve:  more fuel efficient yet more powerful engines, better safety features, better/different finishes.

That's how the iPhone has been and surely will be far into the future.  There will be little differences, curves here, angles there, glass vs metal, but the iPhone you'll buy in the future will have that same recognizable style compared to what we have now.  You'll recognize any future iPhone as being an iPhone.

Nobody expects Porsche to come out with a completely redesigned and different looking new model every year.

iPhone 5

I'm excited to order mine tonight and get it.  Bigger, faster, thinner, lighter.  All sounds great.  We've already been updating apps to take advantage of the extra screen height.

Thinking about 2 years from now (since the iPhone 5S will surely follow the pattern of updating the stuff inside but keeping the same shell.)  I doubt they'd change the resolution again, 1136x640 will be it for quite awhile.  But if the "bigger is better" keeps up, they might increase the pixel size.  They could now up to a 4.35" screen and still be under the magic 300 dpi Retina number...

But really the Width is what's important, easy 1-handed typing on the keyboard.

Windows 8

I've only used the Windows 8 preview a bit.  But from that short time, I think "Windows 8" will be in business books in the same chapter as "New Coke".

Wow, traffic.

One link from DaringFireball and in less than a day this little blog has gotten more page views than it had gotten in the 5 years previous.  Nice :)