What do you really want in a future smartphone?

I’m voting for five simple things. Note, we are talking about smartphones here and not tablets. I look at the patent fights and all the junk functionality that is being crammed into the newest SDKs, and as a consumer all that I really want is all of the following bolted into one phone:

  • Significantly better battery life – My current phone won’t make it through a typical work day.
  • Faster battery charging time – My original Google Ion used to charge in less than an hour, my Atrix takes at least 2 hours and usually much longer.
  • Better default keyboard app – I probably make six mistakes typing one average length sentence because the tiny keys are so close together. Some third party apps have figured this out.
  • Better control over the camera app – I would stop carrying a separate camera if I could simply adjust f-stop and aperture.
  • Ability to read my screen in full sunlight with polarized sunglasses on – No chance of that on my current phone.

I’m fairly happy with the operating system software. And, my phone already has plenty of CPU horsepower and memory. It appears that in five short years the smart phone market has matured and the phone vendors are struggling to differentiate themselves. The current phone wars remind me of car ads on TV. Everyone is claiming incremental improvements that make your life better, easier or faster.  However, I propose there hasn’t really been any ground breaking innovation in smartphones since June 29th, 2007.

Now if there was a press release that said in the next version I could heavily use my phone for 3 days straight without a charge…that would get my attention!

What do you want in the next smartphone?