iPhone: Past, Present and Future – plus some rumours shot …

Apple … that wondeful company that brought us such fun stuff such as iPods, OSX and the iPhone. In this article I am going to talk about the iPhone – all of its previous generations, and the one that may be on its way into a apple store near you following the upcoming Apple WWDC!

The First iPhone:

This one was really a big hit. More so than I myself ever expected it to be. It brought a lot of new stuff to the phone market. Things including the multi touch screen and a simplistic design. However the first iPhone was really not much better than any other phone at the time, or at least in my own opinion. This is mostly because it did not have any 3rd party app support like its contempory, my Palm Treo, had . It also had a recessed headphone jack that in my opinion was a bad idea from the start as it made most headphones useless.

Combine that with no GPS and no multi media messages [picture messages] it was just another phone that was not able to do what the current phones could. It was however an apple product so every person knew about it and thus they went out and bought it. It did have some nice features such as its multi touch screen and full web browser. However at the time I needed more so I myself passed up the iphone all together, not even wanting one .

The 2nd iPhone [The iPhone 3g]:

It Came along and changed all kinds of stuff. Some of the things that it changed was the headphone jack was now flush with the case. The back of the phone went from a metal and plastic [at the bottom] combo to just plastic, The corners got rounded to make it fit a bit better in your hand and it got built in GPS. When it was first released however it still lacked the 3rd party app support that I so needed in order to adopt the phone and thus I moved on to a windows mobile phone. When Apple released its 2.0 firmware they added what is know the very well known App Store.

Now this was a big deal because it added all that 3rd party app love that everyone wanted. It made the iPhone rank up with some of the top smart phones out right now. However it still kind of has its down sides. It still lacks Multi Media Messages [Picture messages] along with no cut and paste support. [Oh how I miss my cut and paste]  It also is still locked down to AT&T [There are ways around this but that is for another article ]. However the current firmware does provide everything that you could need in a phone. Combine that with iTunes and the result is the iPhone I am currently using to text people with.

The rumored iPhone 3g 2009:

Right now every tech blog out there is buzzing with the supposed iPhone 3g 2009 and what it may or may not have. Some people seem to think that the leaked shots prove that it will have a forward facing camera along with video chat support and a whole bunch of new features. However I am going to show you some of the images and point out where/why they are false.

The first one is of the supposed video chat support.

Now on the left hand phone notice the location of the green dot as compared to the one on the right. See how they are in different positions? I am not convinced that this is a new iPhone.

Look at the bottom of the image on the left and notice the icons. To be more precise the one on the right hand side of the phone. Ya the icon that is covered by there cleverly placed logo. That icon is a skype icon. Thus leading me and the writers over at Gizmodo to the same conclusion that the images are fake. I am, of course, not saying that there is no possibility of a new iPhone with a forward facing camera. However these images do nothing to  prove that feature as a probability.

Here is another image of the skype hoax proved.

You see it now? All they did was replace the image of the person they called with a photo shopped one. Kind of a clever yet dumb thing to do. Guess they just wanted there 15 minutes of fame.

Lets move along to another image that I am not at all convinced is any sort of proof what so ever…

Look at the image on the left and you will notice that the speaker is moved up just a bit. Now that is possibly a true image of the new iPhone , once again though, I’m not fully convinced it isn’t just a photoshopped image or a knock off of a current Handset. However the image on the right points to a few dots on the case at the top where the camera might be. This is something I found to be a deal breaker for me. If you take a current iPhone 3g and hold it in the right light you will see those same sensor dots to the left of the speaker. These dots are for the control of the back light if you select auto backlight adjustment and they are also to shut the screen off when you put the phone up to your ear to make a call. Go grab a iPhone and try it. Place a call and cover those dots with your finger and the screen will shut off.  I am not sold at all.

In my opinion the new iPhone wont be coming out when everyone seems to hope it will be (The next WWDC). However I do believe a significant change will happen with current iPhones.

iPhone 3.0 firmware:

This is what I think will come out before a new iPhone. I could of course be way off. The new firmware has been out for beta testers and app developers for a while now. It brings quite a few new features to the current iPhones such as multi media messages [YAY!!!!] as well as copy and paste [double yay!!]. It will also introduce a whole bunch of new SDK tools that will allow a bunch of new features. According to the keynote that apple released about the new SDK manufactures will be able to make accessories that will talk with the iPhones sync port or over bluetooth and be controlled using the iPhone. So lets say you buy a new set of speakers. You will be able to control the EQ and Volume from the iPhone rather than on the speakers themselves. Kind of a big deal if you ask me. It will also bring the ability to add turn by turn navigation to the iPhone. App developers will be able to add turn by turn navigation apps to the app store. That in my mind is a huge deal and I am happy to see that ability coming. There will be a whole bunch of other abilities coming with the new SDK’s and hopefully less fart applications.

So that is my take on the iPhone and what is to come for the device/platform in the WWDC . If you have anything to add be sure to post it in a comment we would love to hear it.

[Image Source: Gizmodo]

-Tracker