Phone Necessities

In the next two weeks, we will seeing numerous phone and wearable announcements. With this, people will be choosing what they think are necessities in their devices. While companies will showoff novelties, it's the daily functionality that will win over the consumers.

Many people probably have similar needs in a phone. 

Some of the top priorities for me:

A quality camera- Everyone understands the reasoning behind having a high performing camera in a phone. It is rumored the Moto X+1 contains a optical zoom, but their camera software has always been mediocre. Apple's iOS definitely has one of best camera software in the industry. Nokia would compete but their popularity in OS is hurting them. A good front-facing camera would be nice for video chatting. Speed was a huge factor; now that most flagship phones are instant, will optical zoom be the next performance significant upgrade for cameras?

Fingerprint Reader: This may not be on your list but I think it's going to the a huge stride in device privacy. It's been proven to be beatable but it's a convenient extra layer of protection. There is no doubt that Apple has an advantage with this; Samsung's implementation in the S5 looks horrendous compared to Apple's 5S.

NFC: For mobile payments, NFC is necessary (currently). It's also a underused feature to transfer small amounts of data. 

Screen/Phone Size: The Galaxy S4's 5-inch is just a little too large as I have to adjust my hand to reach the top left corner of the phone. I'm not saying I wouldn't go beyond 5-inches, but the design would have to make it easier to use a larger phone. Phone size is where Apple dominated the market in my opinion; with their biggest phone at 4" currently, they have a phone that is friendly to the average user. Talking to many women and some men, phone sizes are getting out of hand (yes, I just said that). It's going to be interesting if Apple continues to make new models at 4 inches... The new iPhone 6 looks big especially with the huge bezel space on the top and bottom.

Battery Life: Android L (I'm still hope for Lychee) is suppose to have massive improvements in battery life. the iPhone is rumored to have a bigger battery but also a much larger screen, so we'll have to see its battery life. At this point, battery life is good enough if one can go through a day without any worries.

Features like LTE, 802.11ac support, application support on the OS (whatever services you use on a daily basis), and responsiveness/performance are assumed. Much of the necessary software features are dependent on the software, making the OS more and more important. 

Nice to have:

Ruggedness/Waterproof: At a minimum, it would be nice to have waterproof phones. Shockproof would be even nicer, but there's heftiness that comes with that.

Voice Accessibility: One of the original Moto X's best feature that no other phone did. "Ok Google Now" voice commands anytime. 

Wireless Charging: Never have used it in a normal use-case environment but people who have rave about it. It would nice not have to plug-in. Not until long distance is implemented will wireless charging be a necessity for me.

Active Notifications: Another feature native to the Moto X and its AMOLED. Not having to touch a button to see the time or if you have any notifications sounds amazing. Another feature praised by those who have it.

Front-Facing Speakers: One of the personal pet-peeves has to be speakers that are on the back of a phone. The front would be ideal but it does take up more precious display space.

Useful Gestures: Unlocking gestures.

Customization: I like having a naked phone (i.e. no case). So having some customization like device color would be nice. Definitely not necessary.

Novelties:

Heart Rate Monitor: Samsung, I don't need to measure my heart rate on my phone...

Novelty Gestures: The air gestures/eye movement-following features. Unnecessary.

Dynamic Perspective: Amazon's Fire Phone has proven to be a failure at this point. And it is the prime example of novelty functionality alone will not make your phone a success. And it doesn't help knowing that users have to go through the Amazon App Store (e.g. no Google Apps support).

And in terms of watches... Please be concerned about the market for women... None of the current market of smartwatches have even appeased the general public, men or women.