Wowzers – it looks like this is my last blog post of 2021.

What a year, eh? We’ve had MacBook Pros with SD card slots, iPads with needlessly powerful desktop-class chips, and even a purple iPhone.

As is customary at this time of the year, I’ve spent the last few days thinking about what we might see from Apple (and tech in general) next year.

While I’m holding out for something pretty special iPad-wise in 2022, it wasn’t long before my thoughts turned to the iPhone.

This year, my interest in smartphones was given a new lease of life thanks to the brilliant iPhone 13 mini. Apple completely nailed it with this device, and it is easily the best iPhone I’ve ever owned. The combination of ultra portability, an amazing camera, and darn good looks makes it an absolute gem within their line up.

This begs the question. What do I want from the iPhone 14?

Continuation of the mini

The iPhone 12 mini apparently didn’t sell very well.

That’s bothersome, because it may have sealed the fate of the iPhone mini long before this year’s version hit the shelves.

The consensus appears to be that we won’t see an iPhone 14 mini. Which is such a shame, because I still receive comments every single day from people who have also fallen in love with the iPhone 13 mini.

Don’t kill it off, Apple. Please.

USB-C

I hate Lightning. It sticks out like a sore thumb in my studio. If I need to charge my AirPods Max, I have to dig out a cable and it seems to take forever to charge them when I finally do.

Thankfully, the iPhone and AirPods Pro have MagSafe, which means I can conveniently attach them to a magnetised charger – which is always, ironically, far more accessible than a Lightning cable – when some juice is required.

So, MagSafe has saved the day, to a degree, but there’s one other significant issue with Lightning, which is the data transfer speeds.

The iPhone 13 Pro can shoot ProRes video. This is really cool if you’re an aspiring filmmaker or someone who likes to play around with the latest video codecs. The problem, is that a minute of 4K ProRes footage will chew up 8GB of your storage. And if you want to transfer that footage from your iPhone to your Mac (which you will if you want to do anything meaningful with it), you’ll need to wait approximately 36 days for the task to complete.

Lightning is dead and immensely silly in 2022.

Give us USB-C on the next iPhone please, Apple*.

*they won’t

Better MagSafe

I’m a big fan of MagSafe, but it isn’t perfect.

The magnets themselves appear to be strong enough; I’ve not once inadvertently knocked my MagSafe Wallet off the back of my iPhone 13 mini. But they are a touch inconsistent when it comes to the perfect alignment of an accessory on the back of your phone.

This is most notable with heavier MagSafe accessories such as Apple’s own Battery Pack, which will often sit skew-whiff on the back of the device if you attempt to attach it too quickly.

This isn’t a big deal at all, but a slight tweak to the magnet alignment/arrangement/strength (delete as appropriate) is all that’s needed please, Tim.

A more interesting version

As much as I love my iPhone 13 mini, it’s still a rectangular slab of aluminium.

That isn’t very exciting, and I find myself increasingly admiring the fast-emerging range of foldable smartphones. They look really cool and, more importantly, interesting.

Apple won’t do this – at least not for quite some time. The iPhone is going to remain rectangular and non-foldable for the foreseeable future.

But imagine a more off-the-wall, inventive version joining the line-up in 2022. For me, it would be far more interesting than yet another camera upgrade or even the deletion of the notch.

One can dream, eh?

What do you want?

I can’t think of anything else I want from the iPhone next year, but I suspect that most, if not all, of my wishes above won’t be granted.

What about you? What do you want from the 2022 iPhone? Get involved in the comments!