More carriers: AT&T is certainly a huge carrier and perhaps it paid dearly to become the exclusive wireless phone carrier for the iPhone. But the iPhone ought to be liberated, as a group dubbed Free Press says. There is no need to shackle this gadget to a closed network. Consumers truly want the freedom to use a device on any network. We'll see if the federal government weighs in on this one.

Force feedback technology. As I said before, iPhone users would have a much better time dialing and texting if they could only get some force feedback from the keypad. I know that Immersion, the force-feedback technology licensor based in San Jose, Calif., is a long jaunt from Apple's Cupertino headquarters. But I'll spring for the cab ride for Steve Jobs.

Real GPS. You can use the mapping service to find out how to get from one place to another. But you don't get actual turn-by-turn driving directions delivered by voice. If the iPhone could do this, you could get rid of another gadget in your car.

Voice dialing. You can't dial with voice commands. This makes the iPhone deadly if you're trying to spell out a number or name while driving the car. You should be able to say, "Call home" and let the iPhone do the rest. That technology already is available on a lot of other phones.

Beyond GSM. The iPhone uses the wireless GSM transmission standard that is popular throughout the world. But this also means it creates an interference buzzing noise with a lot of household gadgets. Other wireless phone standards such as CDMA don't have this problem.

Bigger letters on the virtual keyboard. The number keys are just fine for dialing with your fingers, but the letters are much too small. The iPhone has a lot of real estate on its display, but it doesn't use all of it when it presents a virtual keyboard for you to type text messages. The letters are too small, and my thumbs just too big to accurately type.

Third-party applications: Get third-party applications running on the iPhone. Apple should loosen up and allow more third-party software and accessory makers to create new applications for the iPhone. It's far too limited right now. If Apple were to broaden the ecosystem, we could see an explosion in creativity, such as an application from Sling Media that could take stored TV shows from your TiVo and make them available for viewing on the phone.

A lower price. The 8-gigabyte version of the iPhone only costs Apple about $265 to make, according to market researcher iSuppli. That's $335 below the $600 retail price, which means there is plenty of room to cut prices on this gadget over time so that the rest of us can afford it. Me? I've got to return mine to a colleague since I'm too cheap to buy it.