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AT&T Exec Talks About iPhone's Future, 3G Coverage Improvements And Femtocells

Submitted by Edward Kirk on November 7, 2008 - 5:17pm.
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Along with confirming AT&T's plans for iPhone tethering in the future at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday, AT&T's Ralph de la Vega also shared his dream of what he thinks the iPhone could eventually grow up to be. When asked where he though the iPhone would be like in the future, he offered up a long list of pretty fantastic ideas.

According to his vision, the iPhone would start by loading the days RSS news feeds and sending a message to your coffee machine to start making coffee, after which it wakes you with the alarm clock you set. If, as you're drinking your coffee, you decide you'd rather read the news on your TV, you simply wave the iPhone in it's direction and the feeds show up there.

Leaving the house, you lock the door with the device and get in your car, which you use your phone to start. It continues to read your news to you as you make your way to work, where, once you arrive, it starts a conference call to include you and potential customers in Japan. Since they don't speak English, your phone translates your words into Japanese as you talk, and vice versa.

Yes, it does sound pretty crazy, but keep in mind that this is AT&T talking, and they usually mean what they say. Granted, none of these features will probably show up in the next month or even year, but AT&T says they're hard at work experimenting with new features, like their fiber optic IPTV service, U-Verse.

A few things he refused to comment on were if they planned to launch an Android phone, or what they will do when their exclusivity agreement expires in 2010. He did say that they are planning to use a piece of the 850 MHz spectrum to strengthen their signal in densely populated areas like New York where 3G coverage is spotty. They're also looking into the use of femtocells to boost signals indoors.

[via Washington Post]

sounds like he is avoiding the real answer

Submitted by madscientest on November 7, 2008 - 5:33pm.
it kinds sounds like he is not in reality with what the people are actually wanting out of their iphone today but in the year 3000. its nice but in reality it still cant even send a picture message let alone start your car. And where is bluetooth audio in all of this?

and the part where he says that if AT&T says it they mean it, I tried to hold in my laughter. free wi-fi, no wait, ok free wi-fi, ok maybe not, ok well give it to you but you have to subscribe to SMS to activate it....BLAH

Submitted by [TheBORG] on November 7, 2008 - 7:13pm.
And where is the BASIC functions of video recording & MMS????

true

Submitted by steiney on November 7, 2008 - 7:33pm.
that's so true, all that stuff is totally overkill. i don't think anyone in the future is even gonna want one electronic device to have so much power in their life. what if you lose you phone and then you can't start your car to get home, and you have to call a lock smith to get your car unlocked, but you don't have your phone. that's just one bad scenario i can think of.

and yeah, they don't even have some of the basic stuff yet, like the blue tooth or sending picture messages. almost every type of basic cell phone can send them, but not the iphone.

p.s. mr. kirk, one typo, in the first paragraph, second sentence, fifth word, you wrote "though" when you meant "thought".

Submitted by imagine engine on November 8, 2008 - 11:33am.
How about Apple getting the following (see below) working first before having the iPhone make our coffee? Note: #1, 3, 4, 5, 10 and 11 are available to jailbroken iPhones through Cydia so don't let Apple or even AT&T trick you into believing they came up with the solution first as it has already been done.

1. Tethering.
2. A2DP.
3. MMS.
4. Ability to record both video and audio in MPEG4 to send as a podcast.
5. Ability to change light settings, digital zoom and have a timer for the camera.
6. Ability to type in landscape mode even when using SMS or mobile chat application.
7. Turn by Turn GPS Navigation.
8. Voice Command and Voice Dial with out needing a third party solution.
9. Ability to remote wipe data for MobileMe subscribers.
10. Ability to run apps in the background.
11. Ability to theme the iPhone.
12. Ability to edit documents, not just read them.
13. Copy/Paste.