Looking forward to the announcement of the 4th-gen iPhone

I'm not an iPhone fan. I don't even have the device. I've been using Windows Mobile for several years and will soon be switching to Android (pre-ordered the HTC Desire). So why do I care about the upcoming 4th-gen iPhone? 2 reasons...

1. Innovation. The 1st-gen iPhone was the one that reshaped the whole smartphone landscape. Capacitive multi-touch, smooth OS animations, and fingerfriendly navigation. We've never seen anything like it before. Every other smartphone manufacturer were suddenly now playing catch-up. Because of this, everybody else started making much better devices. If it were not for the iPhone, we would not have superphones like the HTC HD2, Nexus One, Desire, Legend, X10, etc. It's been quite a long time since we've had something truly innovative in the iPhone world. (I would say the last time was when they introduced the App Store). If Apple is able to bring something truly new and awesome to the smartphone arena, their fanboys would rejoice. But better yet, every other manufacturer will once again try to one-up Apple and as a result, we'll all benefit with even better devices in the future.
2. To watch Apple crash & burn and see how their fans defend their device's mediocrity. Apple has some tough competition in the Motorola Droid and HTC Desire. They also have to be wary of the imminent launch of Windows Phone 7 Series devices. They have to come up with something better than (or at least on par with) the devices that are already out. It would be unacceptable to have a margin of improvement similar to the difference between the iPhone 3G and the 3GS. Imagine if the only new features were a 5MP cam with LED flash, more storage, and a longer-lasting battery that's still non-removable. Apple-haters would be having a parade over this.
   

As much fun as I would like to see Apple fail, I would much prefer if Apple got their act together and delivered something truely awesome for everyone come this summer.


For Apple not to fail, they need to improve the following at a minimum!

• Low resolution screen. The 480x320 screen that was introduced back in 2007 needs to be upgraded to WVGA (800x480) at least)
• Multi-tasking. The most well-documented glaring flaw of the iPhone OS. We all know it can be done because of jailbreakers. So why isn't it being implemented natively?
• Wouldn't hurt to allow some sort of customizations. Except for the wallpaper on the lockscreen, every iPhone looks exactly the same.
• It needs to be able to do something that has that wow factor. (I'd argue that HTC achieved this with their HTC Sense interface in the Legend and the Desire).