Five Things I Want From The 3G iPhone

Apple's (AAPL) next-gen, 3G iPhone is expected to launch sometime in June or July, and I'll be one of the first in line to buy one. The current iPhone is fine -- beyond its pokey, EDGE data connection -- but there are a few things I'd love to be able to do with Apple's new phone.

Record video. My old Palm (PALM) Treo can do it and pretty much every other new phone can do it. And the iPhone has the added bonus of 8 (or 16) gigabytes of available storage.

Watch more Web video than just YouTube. I'd love to be able to watch Hulu on the go, for example, or video from the networks' Web sites. This requires an Adobe (ADBE) Flash plugin for the iPhone, or for Web video sites to make a second version of their site that the iPhone can play.

Access my home computer. The "virtual desktop" app on my Treo works great, and I use it all the time to check on tasks my computer's doing, grab info from a document I left at home, or make sure my alarm clock app is turned off when I'm away from home.

Copy and paste. Another Treo feature I'm used to using on a daily basis. Copy stuff from Web browser into email, email into IM, etc.

Pay for stuff. One of the coolest things I saw in Tokyo last fall: Paying for a subway ride, can of Coke, whatever -- by touching your phone to a sensor. There's a lot of complexities to sort out here, but the first step should be simple: Letting me touch my iPhone to the Visa/Mastercard sensor at the drugstore to pay for stuff.

See Also:
What's The iPhone's Europe Problem?
3G iPhone Details: "Radically Different," May Have Keyboard
What's New In Apple's 3G iPhone: More Memory, Megapixels, Video Recording