My 2013 wishlist – Tom

My dreams are small, I don’t want much. There are a few things I do long for though.

Wireless Charging

I know we already have this, and I know we have a standard so this will most likely be something that will actually happen. I just wanted to throw my support behind it because it excites me. Where I work I am in a project with a bloke that used to work at BT. Anyway, he told me that 10-15 years ago they were working on furniture that you could place your phone onto and it would charge itself. This is the sort of wireless charging I’d like to see. Logical implementations of the technology so that we don’t have to change the way we behave in order to integrate it into our lives. Maybe a pad that can be stuck up under my desk so that I can charge my phone when I place it down on it. I’d even be up for a bit of DIY to modify the desk if they wanted me to. I already empty my pockets onto my desk when I get home, might as well have the phone charge itself when I do.

An Actual Android Tablet Version of Apps…

I think this is self explanatory. Just compare Spotify, YouTube, eBay etc… on the iPad and then a Nexus 7/10. Exactly.

Longer Battery Life

I think this is echoed by all. While I enjoy how phones get a few millimeters thinner every year I would prefer if phones stayed the same thickness as we make more space for the batteries inside…

Windows Phone Apps

I am not actually 100% sure on what the state of play is here, but I hear it isn’t great. My concern though is based on my imminent phone purchase. The plan was always to get a Nexus 4, easy. Google just dropped what looked like a great phone that would be the savior of all mankind. Brilliant. Then the stories started coming in, the battery life isn’t great, the glass just breaks of it’s own accord, you can hardly get hold of one, the camera isn’t that great (although it’s an improvement on the Galaxy Nexus). As the year wound down I started to fall back in love with my Xbox and really started to get

into Windows 8 on my PC, a Windows Phone device seem to be an inevitability. The HTC 8X is only £399 anyway, that’s not bad. So I am hoping this year brings a flood of those popular apps into the Windows Phone ecosystem.

A ‘Back’ Button In iOS

This is just me filling out my wishlist with an odd gripe I have had with my iPad over the past few weeks. I spend so much time with Android devices and the ‘back’ button, whatever guise it comes in, is damn handy for navigating around apps. In iOS it is always moving around depending on what app and where the developer has located the buttons. In Android it’s always (often) bottom left on the soft keys or hardware keys. I am ALWAYS in an app on iOS searching for the way to go back one screen because I clicked the wrong button, or how to close a preview etc. It’s easy in Android, just hit that back button. Nothing ground breaking, just a feature that has been bugging me for the past few weeks.

So there we have it, a few things I am looking forward to. I hope some of them happen. Like I said, I don’t want much. Here’s to a gadget fueled ride through 2013 that will result in me having all my worldly goods repossessed as I run flat out of money. Enjoy it guys!