Here’s a quick list in no particular order of (obvious?) features that the iPhone does not have, but could add in the future throguh a software update.
Obviously, people at Apple had to draw the line somewhere in the feature list so they can actually ship and start selling a product.
Some of the features probably ended in the wrong side of this line and will be added in the future. Others were surely killed by business deals with AT&T (VoIP anyone?). Others, they decided they don’t want it on the iPhone at all, even though it can be done.
Can you think of more?
- Video recording
- Voice-note recording
- VoIP (like Skype) functionality
- .Mac syncing
- Copy/Paste
- Ringtones from your music
- Synchronization thrugh WiFi or Bluetooth
- Keychain (password storing)
- Objective C/ Cocoa SDK
- Dashboard/Widget support (outside of Safari)
- iChat
- A2DP
- Voice dialing
- Games
- Slot for memory cards
- Spotlight
- Java
- Flash
- MMS
- Geolocation
- eBooks
- Built in RSS Reader
- SSH
- Bonjour iTunes sharing
- Printing support
- Video teleconferencing
(Disclaimer: I think that the iPhone is awesome and none of this missing things is a deal-breaker. It will do great for what it does have.)
Update 2:15 PM:
Some interesting suggestions in the comments. Some of them would require hardware changes, so they are not in the original list (more storage, video out, use EDGE while on the phone).
Also, answering to Hammer of Truth’s comment on spotlight: “Spotlight? How many files do you expect to have on your iphone and why do you need spotlight?“.
Obviously you don’t know what Spotlight is. Here’s why I’d want it. I search for Johnny Appleseed and in the search results screen I can click on his Address Book contact info, emails between us, an email message mentioning him, SMS messages between us, and more in the future. It’s a really powerful and useful feature of Mac OS X and would be useful in the iPhone too.
