NViRT

You don’t have to tell me. Yes, I know there are a million people out there that want their iPhone to be a teleporter too; or magically grow 3G tech with software updates. Fortunately, this is a different type of wish list. A list of wishes, if you will, that is not too far from reality. The following additions to the iPhone will not only be desired by the community, the underlying methods and technology exist now. Only software updates, add-ons and/or infrastructure changes are needed to make them a reality. Today I give you my insight into the future of iPhone application possibilities and add-on device support.

Okay, the wish list introduction horse is dead. Lets get started shall we?

Bluetooth GPS support
Heck, extended bluetooth device support for that matter (keyboards etc.) This is a given so I won’t go into too much detail. Simply put, the iPhone’s mobile version of OS X should work with almost any bluetooth application/device that the desktop versions of OS X can. A GPS enabled version of Google maps along with maybe some “my location” sharing software for geotagging .mac stuff (more on .mac/iPhone integration latter).

Bluetooth Bonus: EDR external 3G/WiMax Modem… for us early adopting broadband loving whores. Or hell, just be able to tether your iPhone to your existing 3G device. Some HTC devices can be turned into WiFi access points that share their broadband-via-cell-network love. A little convoluted, but you get the idea.

iTunes/AppleTV “Location-free”(ish) player
I should be able to access all the media in the iTunes database that my iPhone has a sync relationship with; Just like a handheld AppleTV. The device can do it now on WiFi given only a software update. The new services debuting with Leopard that have to do with accessing your mac from anywhere via the .mac service will also help you access your media easily (key word - easily) from your iPhone when you are out and about. Network speed issues arise when using EDGE, but these are easy to overcome with down-sampling (as the YouTube player does when it needs to) or with an earlier wished-for external modem.

It should be noted that many have hinted at a 10 gigabyte version of the Jesus device with 3G or some kind of EDGE network upgrade. Although, if I could access all of my media from anywhere, manage the sync rules locally, and sync OTA, I wouldn’t need any more memory.

iChat (duh)
Why let users send low byte-count messages to one another for free* on the $20 dollar a month unlimted data plan when you can force them to use SMS and limit consumers to turn a buck. When iChat is released for the iPhone, it should be no surprise that even though iChat data can and should use the EDGE GPRS network, we may see AT&T attempt to charge SMS rates for these “network messages”. They will do this the same way they do it now, by handling you IM connection for you using a jabber-ish “Wireless Village” server and markup your data rate at some 3,000%. It is a tactic in use now and is what forces many to opt for an unlimited messaging plan even though most IM messages are made up of GPRS packets and have nothing to do with SMS (unless your phone is configured otherwise.)

Keep in mind that even if you “hack” a device to use its IM client over GPRS or install a java AIM client, cell companies’ infrastructures conveniently block the ports required to get all the data back to the phone (There are ways around this but it’s out of the scope of this post) Sidekicks/Hiptop devices use a back-end data service through Danger to sync OTA and keep IM online; which leads back to Apples .mac as a future back-end service for the iPhone… AT&T permitting.