Speed. Toughness. Efficiency. Silence. That’s why we want solid-state drives in our computers. But we worry about the zoom-zoom performance degrading over time, and the fact that SSDs might eventually wear out. Here’s what you need to know about ’em.

Why Solid-State Drives Are Awesome (Or At Least, Better Than Hard Drives)

To understand what’s great about SSDs, let’s start with HDDs (you know, old-fashioned hard drives). On a basic level, a hard disk drive works thusly: Inside is a magnetized recording surface called a platter that spins around really fast, with a head that zooms across disk to read and write data—think kinda like a record player, except the head never touches the surface, ’cause that would be very, very bad. So, you can see the problem with hard drives: They’re fragile (don’t drop your computer) and they’re slow to access stuff because the head has to physically move to where the data is.

With an SSD, on the other hand, we’re talking straight silicon. What’s inside is a bunch of flash memory chips and a controller running the show. There are no moving parts, so an SSD doesn’t need to start spinning, doesn’t need to physically hunt data scattered across the drive and doesn’t make a whirrrrr. The result is that it’s crazy faster than a regular hard drive in nearly every way, so you have insanely quick boot times (an old video, but it stands), application launches, random writes and almost every other measure of drive performance (writing large files excepted). For a frame of reference, General Manager of SanDisk’s SSD group, Doron Myersdorf, says an equivalent hard drive would have to spin at almost 40,000rpm to match an SSD. And, you can drop it—at least, a little.

Secrets of the SSD

Typically, what you’ve inside an SSD is a bunch of NAND flash memory chips for storage—the same stuff found in memory cards and USB thumb drives—along with a small cache of DRAM, like you’d find on most current hard drives. The DRAM is also flash memory, but the difference between the two is that the storage memory is non-volatile, meaning the data it holds won’t go poof when it loses power, while the faster DRAM is volatile memory, so “poof” is exactly what happens to DRAM data when the power goes out. That’s fine because it’s the faster DRAM is just for caching things, holding them temporarily to make the whole system work faster.

So, let’s talk a bit about flash memory itself. I’ll try to keep it straightforward and not lose you, because it’s key to the benefits and problems with solid-state storage.

Flash memory is made up of a bunch of memory cells, which are made up of transistors. There are two basic kinds of memory: With single-level cell (SLC) memory, one bit of data is stored per cell. (Bits, the basic building block of information, if you recall, have two states, 0 or 1.) The SLC type is fast as hell and lasts a long time, but it is too expensive for storing the dense amounts of data you’d want in a personal computer. SLC memory is really only used for enterprise stuff, like servers, where you need it to last for 100,000 write cycles.

The solution for normal humans is multi-level cell memory. Currently, up to 4 bits can be stored per cell. “Multi-level” refers to the multiple levels of voltage in the cell used to get those extra bits in. MLC SSD drives are much cheaper than SLC but are, as I mentioned, slower, and can wear out faster than their pricier counterpart. Still, for now and going forward into the foreseeable future, all of the SSDs you could come close to owning are of the MLC variety.

The Bad Stuff

Structurally, flash memory is divided into blocks, which are broken down further into pages. And now, we get into one of the major problems with flash. While data can be read and written at the individual page level, it can only be erased at the larger block level. In other words, suppose you have a 256k block and a 4k page, and you want to erase just one page worth of data, you have to erase the whole block, and then write all the rest of the data back to the block.

This is a huge problem, for one, because MLC flash memory wears out after 10,000 write cycles. Two, as the drive fills up, performance significantly degrades. (Anandtech has a pretty great illustration, amidst a massively deep dive on SSDs you should read if you’re interested at all, showing this.) That’s because without free blocks to write to, you’ve gotta go through that intensive erase and rewrite cycle, which, as you’d imagine, entails a lot of overhead. Problem numero three is that, according to SanDisk CEO Eli Harari, there’s “a brick wall” in the near future, when storage at the chip level could stop increasing in the not-too-distant future.

Mitigating the Bad Stuff

The thing is, you actually probably still want an SSD in your next computer, to make it run awesomer. Because where there are problems, there are sorta solutions. Remember how I mentioned up above the other major component in an SSD, besides the flash memory, is the controller? They’re a big part of what differentiates one company’s SSD from another’s. The controller is the secret sauce, as SanDisk’s Myersdorf told me. Because the game, for now, is all about managing flash better, both physically and logically. In other words, it’s about algorithms.

The first standard technique for long flash-memory life is wear leveling, which is simply not writing to the same area of the drive over and over again. Instead, the goal is to fill up the entire drive with stuff before you have to start erasing blocks, knowing that erasing and re-writing will use up precious cycles. The problem of “Write amplification”—say you have a 1MB document that ends up causing 4MB worth of writes to the drive because of the whole block and pages problem described above, where you wind up reading, erasing and re-writing a bunch of extra blocks and pages—that is being lowered, says Myersdorf, because drive management is shifting from being block-based to page-based. More granular algorithms with caching and prediction means there’s less unnecessary erasing and writing.

The biggest thing is what’s called TRIM. As you probably know, when you delete something from your computer, it isn’t instantly vaporized. Your OS basically just marks the data as “Hey it’s cool to pave over this with new stuff.” Your hard drive has no real idea you deleted anything. With the TRIM function, when you delete something, the OS actually tells the SSD, “Hey you can scrub this crap.” The SSD dumps the block to a cache, wipes the pages with the stuff you want gone, and copies the stuff you want to keep back to a new block, leaving you with clean pages for the next time you want to write something to the disk. This means better performance when you’re saving new stuff, since it handles the read-erase-rewrite dance ahead of time. Windows 7 supports TRIM, and Myersdorf says Windows 8 will be even better for solid-state storage.

As for busting through the brick wall of limited storage, the number of electrons that can reside in a cell, increasing flash memory storage at a pace faster than Moore’s Law, right now, Toshiba, who invented NAND flash, is currently the chip capacity king. The company just announced a new 64GB NAND flash module that combines 16 4GB NAND chips. This would seem to be closing in on that wall, which we don’t want them to do, because we want the dollar-to-MB ratio to keep dropping. Myersdorf is optimistic (despite his boss’s gloomy pronouncement), “There have been several walls in history of the [flash] industry—there was transition to MLC, then three bits per cell, then four—every time there is some physical wall, that physics doesn’t allow you to pass, there is always a new shift of paradigm as to how we make the next step on the performance curve.”

Okay, the big question then: When are SSDs gonna get seriously affordable? A 160GB version of one of the one of the most acclaimed SSDs, Intel’s X25, retails for $470. OCZ’s Colossus is a verifiable brick of solid-state storage, and the 1TB model has an MSRP of $2200, though it’s going for much more. By contrast, a 1TB WD old-fashioned hard drive is like a hundred bucks on a bad day. Myersdorf says it’s hard to say when the SSD’s dollar-to-byte ratio is going to go down absolutely, mostly because of supply and demand, but he did predict that a lot of “mainstream” laptops are gonna have 256GB SSDs in the next 18 months. Oh good, I’ll be due for a new laptop right around then.

Thanks to SanDisk for helping us out! Still something you wanna know? Send questions about solid states, solid snakes, or solid shakes here, with “Giz Explains” in the subject line.

Sprint customers: If you’re worried that you bought a first gen Palm Pre only to watch helplessly as Palm released a better Pre on Verizon, stop. The Palm Pre Plus is essentially the same phone as the Palm Pre.

Sure, there are minor hardware differences—most notably the doubling of the RAM and the storage space—but it essentially feels like the same phone.

What’s changed in the hardware

The three most visible changes you’ll notice are the removed front button, the matted inductive-charging-capable backplate and the slightly improved keyboard.

Palm realized with the Palm Pixi that a front button was unnecessary, since it broke up the smooth finish of the face, and replaced it with a touch-sensitive button instead. It’s what the Pre should have been like in the first place. The new touch button works fine, and within a few minutes you’ll barely even miss the hardware key like you would never miss a sixth toe you never had.

The keyboard has been upgraded as well, made much less mushy with more tactile feedback when you hit a key—another lesson Palm learned from the Pixi. You’ll type faster and more accurately with these keys compared to the original Pre, even though they don’t raise up any higher off the body and their layout remains unchanged.

The Touchstone-compatible inductive backing comes standard on the Pre Plus. Palm effectively lowered the cost of their inductive charger by $20—it’s $70 on Sprint, which comes with the back, and $50 on Verizon, which doesn’t—and makes the accessory all the easier to justify buying. Even if you don’t go the wireless charging route, the matted, inductive finish makes the phone a lot classier and less prone to fingerprint smudging.

Everything else is the same

That same cheese-cutting bottom edge of the phone is still there, and the overall mold of the device is exactly what we saw with the first Pre. There’s no change in camera, processor, graphical capability or screen. And, luckily for Pre owners, the software is identical, too.

Basically, if you didn’t like the original Pre, you won’t like the Pre Plus any more than before. But if you did like the Pre and didn’t want to jump to Sprint, Palm’s graciously brought it to you.

How does it compare to the original in performance?

Both phones took almost exactly two minutes to boot up, side by side. Flicking around, browsing websites, listening to music and answering emails—in any of these routine tasks, you’d never tell the two phones apart through blind testing. However, there is a slight difference when you start getting to heavy multitasking.

The increased RAM starts to be utilized when you open a LOT of apps—I’m talking about ten or more, something you normally wouldn’t do unless you were really bored, really forgetful or really lazy about closing your apps. Once you have all these things open at once, you’ll notice that the old Pre takes somewhere between 5 to 10 seconds longer to start up new applications than the Pre Plus. While this improvement may be handy for some, the fact that the discrepancy is only 5 to 10 seconds is a testament to how well the multitasking memory allocation worked in the original Pre. Once all these apps are open, there isn’t much difference, but switching around is a bit faster.

Mobile Hotspot

While the Sprint Pre lacks tethering, Verizon’s Palm Plus includes an excellent Mobile Hotspot app that’s quite simple to use. It’s essentially the same as other tethering apps out there: Fire up the app, set a hotspot password and switch on the tethering. Any Wi-Fi device (laptops, phones) will see the broadcasted network and be able to connect to it as you would any other hotspot.

And Verizon, although not the “fastest” 3G network, still gave pretty damn good speeds when I was testing this feature—and it’s reliable to boot. The only downside is the pricing, which we’ll cover later, but having a portable MiFi that’s also your phone can be a lifesaver if you need to connect from the field.

So that’s why Palm called this Plus

There isn’t enough to call this an entirely new series of Palm phones, or even a Palm Pre 2. The Pre Plus improved on the Pre in a few important regards, don’t get me wrong, but it’s essentially the same phone we’ve seen for the last six months. You won’t notice the increased memory unless you’re a habitual window-opener, nor will you appreciate the keyboard unless you really had a problem with the previous one.

So yes, it’s called the Palm Pre Plus for a reason. And it lets Verizon customers get in on the web OS action while staying on their preferred network—which is a good thing, and actually a decent move for Palm. Rather than try to suck more money off the same group of potential customers (Sprint users) with a phone that will be a bit better but not all that different, Palm went ahead and repackaged the same phone with slight modifications to a new sea of potential users.

I suspect that this strategy will grant Palm more return on their initial webOS/Palm Pre investment, justifying the production of an entirely new phone that catches up to both the Nexus One and the upcoming iPhone 4. For Palm’s sake, it better.

Pricing

The Palm Pre Plus will be $150 with a two-year contract on Verizon, and the Pixi Plus will be $100. That’s the same price as it is currently on Sprint—even though Sprint had some deals earlier to push their Pre down to the $100 range.

But, Verizon has a special deal where you can buy either a Pre Plus or a Pixi Plus and get one free Pixi Plus after mail-in rebate, if you want to switch your family over to all Palms.

Here’s the bad. The 3G hotspot feature will be an extra $40 on top of your existing voice and data plans, and it won’t be unlimited! Verizon will give you 5GB and charge 5 cents per MB that you go over. It’s pricey, but nice to have in an emergency.

And here are the voice plans that go with. You’ll be able to buy the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus—which we didn’t review, because it’s the same exact hardware with Mobile Hotspot added—January 25.

More RAM and storage means a slightly better experience, but you might not notice it


Keyboard is improved


Hotspot tethering app is somewhat unique, since it’s officially sponsored by the provider


Still a fan of webOS as a smartphone platform, and it’s still in good shape here


Still not as many apps as Android or iPhone yet


It’s basically the same phone as the Palm Pre


Hotspot access is expensive

Background can be found here

Flash an exotic prototype, then—Presto!—get people to buy your more boring stuff. That kind of thinking still rules at most electronics companies. Apple under Steve Jobs only shows off actual products. The difference? Apple’s arcane secret to success.

A specter harrows the consumer electronics industry: malaise. Like washed-up Catskill magicians unable to let go of old routines while a brash upstart steals their audience, nearly every maker of consumer electronics in the world clings to a quaint song-and-dance about prototypes.

“Here is your possible future,” they bark, flourishing the latest conceptual product from the lab. “Now watch us make it disappear!”

Apple’s chief magician knows better, pulling solid objects out of the aether; products you can actually buy.

If this sounds like a minor complaint about most of the industry’s lack of imagination in marketing, you’re misunderstanding the whole act. The fact that Apple does not reveal prototypes but shipping products is the fundamental difference between their entire business strategy and that of the rest of the industry. It evokes a feeling of trust between Apple and consumers—that when Apple actually reveals a product, it’s something that they’re confident enough to support for years to come.

For the better part of the last century—starting arbitrarily with the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair and its stark, Randian slogan: “Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms”—the producers of consumer goods have stuck to a basic formula: Show off a prototype; gauge public response; then release a commercial product that is less ambitious, if released at all.

It worked in part because it told a compelling story. “Here is what the future looks like; and here’s an intermediate step towards that future that you can buy today.” Electronics’ sister industries followed the same tack. Car shows were populated with prismatic concept cars hewn with non-Euclidean angles rotating on raised daises. Videogame tech demos showed graphics too impossible to believe, but entrancing enough to betray our better judgment.

But in Jobs’ encore performance, Apple has changed the routine.

Outwardly Apple’s showmanship is competent, workmanlike. Jobs-as-performer wears an understated uniform that does not distract from the act. His humor, when it exists, is subtle. The closest an Apple keynote gets to pomp are pie charts that look like wooden logs.

Yet when Jobs reveals the company’s next product, there’s a critical difference: It exists. When possible, it is available for retail purchase the same day. There are few maybes or eventuallys tempering the presentation: “Here is the tiny miracle we’ve created. We want to sell it to you today.”

As a counter-example, let me pick on Lenovo for a moment: At CES this year, they showed off the Ideapad U1 prototype, a netbook with a screen that could be decoupled from the keyboard to operate as a multitouch tablet. Clever idea, seemingly well considered and brain-bendingly not available for purchase today.

Do you see the story that Lenovo is spoiling for themselves? First, they’ve deprecated the imagined utility of every other laptop they sell without the flashy removable tablet screen. Yet they’ve also whispered a nervous apology to potential customers: “We could make something this cool, but we’re not so confident in our plans to fully commit to them. Maybe you could tell us if you think you’d like this trick?”

Lenovo might make the U1. They might sell a few units. But simply by revealing it before it was a living, breathing SKU on retail shelves, they’ve relegated it to a quirky sideshow.

See also: The Chevy Volt, announced so long ago that GM has gone through a bankruptcy and shotgun CEO transition without actually being available for sale. Bet those will be flying off the lots.

Some of Apple’s peers understand the need to manage expectations. Have you ever seen RIM show off a BlackBerry prototype? What about Nintendo? They don’t pull a Microsoft-like move of showing very early-stage products to reporters and potential customers. They simply pull out a Wii or a DS and say, “This is it. Give it a try.”

Everybody loves a prototype. Engineers get a chance to strut their stuff. If you’ve got a 40-inch OLED TV in a lab somewhere, bring it to your trade show. Executives take pride in their company’s technical prowess. Marketers get an excuse to throw an even fancier party. And customers and press get idyll fodder for a daydream.

None of those things equal units sold. None of those things turn a customer into an ardent fan.

That an industry exists around rumors and leaks for unreleased products may be useful to Apple, but it is a side-effect of their product strategy, not the basis of their marketing. Consider that when Apple finally does release a product, the marketing tends to showcase the device itself in clear, comprehensible ways. Apple isn’t shy to make claims about the grandiose, epiphanal nature of its products because—whether they pull it off or not—they have built a culture in which every product they make is designed to be world class.

Instead of prototypes, Apple makes patents. Although I’m certain Apple would keep these patents behind the curtain if they legally could, their existence proves something amazingly pedestrian: Behind the scenes, Apple is essentially the same sort of company as every other electronics star in the world.

They’re developing prototypes. They’re trying new tricks, seeing what works. They know experimentation is the lifeblood of innovation.

But like the consummate showmen they are, they temper the wooly process of building the future with something missing from nearly every other technology company: restraint. Apple may come off at times as a bit soulless, but at least they’ve got class. And when that class allows them to sell more products that make happier customers, I’ll take class over flash every time.

That the Consumer Electronics Show is held in Vegas is no accident. It’s a derelict spectacle meant to cater to mid-level buyers, gilt with the threadbare trappings of Innovation and Progress, but sending most of its audience home with nothing but a hangover and a t-shirt.

When Apple pulls a tablet out of its hat next week, it’s likely that we won’t be able to purchase it for a couple of months, but rest assured that’s only because of regulatory pitfalls. And besides, there will be no doubt that when Jobs shows us his vision of the future, Apple will be doing everything they can do to get them into our hands.

That’s the trick of it. Consumer audiences have grown wary of nearly a century of predictable sleight-of-hand. We’ve seen too many companies promise us the future, then fail to deliver it.

I believe that there are dozens of companies out there with the talent to pull the future toward us along some retail tesseract. But until they conquer their stage fright, leave aside the vaudevillian antics that savvy, jaded audiences no longer find compelling, and embrace a more honest and practical sort of conjuration, Apple will continue to be the defining technology performance of our age.

Yes, the Apple Tablet is coming next week! But do you know what gets me even more excited? A new version of the iPhone. But how will it be different? Let’s look at the rumors.

Will it be announced on January 27th?

While the original iPhone was announced in January 2007, a full six months before it was released, the 3G was announced two months before its release and most recent version, the 3GS, was announced a mere month before its release. There’s no real reason for Apple to announce a new version of the iPhone months before its release at this point, and if they really are announcing the tablet on the 27th, there’s no reason to overdo it by announcing both. The only way they’d announce it next week is if it was being released much sooner than anticipated. Probability: 20%

When is it coming out?

Yes, a new iPhone will be released this year. Foxconn, Apple’s main manufacturer, is rumored to have already received the order. But when, exactly, should we expect to see it?

If Apple continues along the schedule they’ve stuck to for the past three iterations, look for the iPhone 4 to drop this summer. The original iPhone dropped on June 29, 2007, the 3G came on July 11, 2008 and the 3GS arrived on June 19, 2009. While there have been rumors about a new iPhone showing up in April, those are sketchy at best. The good money is on late June/Early July. Probability: 95%

Will it run on a 4G wireless network?

The 3G and 3GS both run on AT&T’s 3G network, with the 3GS supporting the speedier 7.2 Mbps HSDPA network. AT&T is also working on its 4G LTE network, and some people think the next-gen iPhone could run on that.

It’s unlikely. 3G networks were technically available when the first iPhone was released, but Apple held off until the network was robust enough to handle a good number of people before releasing the 3G. And LTE phones are probably a good six months off still, so expect the new iPhone to continue running on the 7.2 Mbps HSDPA network.

The good news is that the network is far from running at full capacity, so as AT&T beefs it up we should see speeds increase until the v5 LTE iPhone shows up in 2011. Probability: 10%

OMG is it coming to Verizon?!

One analyst seems to think so, and he also claims Apple and Verizon are disagreeing on pricing. Unfortunately, these claims are just his assumptions and aren’t based on any solid information, as is analyst’s wont.

The real motivation for Apple to bring the phone to Verizon is that AT&T’s serious network limitations in NYC and SF have given the iPhone’s once-sterling reputation a black eye. Add to that the fact that Android is starting to encroach on Apple’s hype train, and you’ve got the makings of a good time to expand to other networks.

However, the fact that Apple would need to make a totally new iPhone to run on Verizon’s (and Sprint’s, for that matter) CDMA network is a big roadblock here. It’s not insurmountable, however. Verizon would have to be willing to play ball (although they’ve given hints of that lately), and a lot would have to be worked out.

Our guess is that this is still another year away. After all, both Verizon and AT&T are turning to LTE for their 4G networks, which would make it easier to release one LTE iPhone for both networks. And we all know how Apple likes to keep its product lines simple. Probability: 30% that it happens this year, 60% next year

What processor will it have?

The sketchy source that claimed the new iPhone would be out in April also claimed that it will feature a multi-core ARM Cortex-A9, capable of speeds over 2GHz. While the source isn’t great, this part of the rumor isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

Another option is Apple using chips designed by PA Semi, their in-house chip foundry. There are rumors of PA Semi chips running the forthcoming tablet, and it would make sense that Apple would go a similar route for the next iPhone. Specs are unclear, but it’s safe to say that it would be a bump up from the 3GS.

How much storage will it have?

64GB, probably. Both Samsung and Toshiba have some new 64GB NAND chips that are exactly what Apple would put in an updated iPhone. And the 3GS already has 32GB, so doubling that number is a pretty obvious upgrade. Probability: 95%

What about the graphics chip?

Imagination Technologies, the company behind the iPhone 3GS’s PowerVR SGX535 GPU, recently announced the next version in that line, the SGX545. It has OpenGL 3.2 and Open CL 1.0 support, runs at 200MHz, supports DirectX 10.1 and can do HD output. It seems like a natural next step for the guts of the iPhone, unless Apple wanted to keep the product line simpler by continuing to use the 3GS GPU for another year. Another GPU upgrade would allow for more visually impressive games, just not on older models. Probability: 85%

Will it have video chat?

This was strongly rumored for the 3GS, but didn’t happen: a second camera on the front of the phone, allowing for mobile video chat. Jesus wants it very badly.

The main argument against this happening is that AT&T’s network just couldn’t handle it, which is probably true. But it could be done with a Wi-Fi-only implementation. Then again, maybe it’s just one of those features that just sounds better than it actually is; the idea of holding your phone up in front of your face at arm’s length seems pretty stupid to me. Probability: 30%

Potential New Features

A High-Res AMOLED Screen:
The iPhone’s screen is starting to look a little dated when compared to the beauties found on the Motorola Droid and the Nexus One. The Droid’s screen is 3.7 inches with a 480×854 resolution, while the Nexus One sports a particularly lovely 3.7-inch AMOLED screen with a 480×800 resolution. Compare these numbers to the iPhone, which sports a 3.5-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 320×480, and it becomes clear that a screen upgrade is inevitable.

Furthermore, Apple filed a patent for a slimmer, lighter dual-function touchscreen back in 2008. The new touchscreens feature capacitors included in the pixels of the screen, able to operate individually, eliminating the need for a touch sensor panel overlaid on the display. This would allow the screens to be manufactured more cheaply and easily while also allowing for a thinner profile.

Whether or not the new screens are AMOLEDs or Apple’s new LCD technology, the chances are good that the resolution will get a bump. The trouble is that all of the apps in the App Store have been coded for a native resolution of 320×480, so a lot of work will have to be done to get those upscaled for a higher-resolution screen. That’s no reason to keep a last-gen screen on a new product, however, so we think a resolution upgrade is highly likely. Probability: 90%

A Stylus:
A recently-unearthed Apple patent shows an iPhone being used with a stylus with a conductive tip. The patent was filed back in July of 2008, however, so this seems like more of an ass-covering patent than a product-defining patent. After all, Steve famously said “yuck” to styluses at the first iPhone keynote. So the chances of the new iPhone coming with a stylus are slim to none. Probability: 5%

Removable Battery:
The same flimsy source that claimed that the new iPhone will be released in April also said we should expect a removable battery. This is highly doubtful. Apple has just revamped all of its laptops to have non-user-removable batteries, why would it suddenly do an about-face with the new iPhone? Don’t count on it. Probability: 5%

Touch-Sensitive Casing:
This is an interesting one. A Goldman Sachs analyst seems to think that the back of the new iPhone will be touch-sensitive, like the Magic Mouse. This would allow for gesture-based control, like scrolling, without your fat fingers blocking the screen. This one’s purely speculative, but makes a certain amount of sense. Probability: 35%

Wireless N Support:
This one is pretty obvious. The newest iPod Touch already has a Broadcom BCM4329 chip inside that supports 802.11n and FM transmission, so it’s natural that the next iPhone would get the same thing. A recent job posting by Apple for a Wi-Fi software engineer just adds credence to the rumor. Probability: 95%

5-Megapixel Camera:
Digitimes claims that OmniVision Technologies, the company behind the iPhone 3GS’s 3.2-megapixel CMOS image sensor, has won a new contract with Apple to produce millions of 5-megapixel sensors this year. This one makes sense, as the MP count (as well as storage size) is one of the most basic ways to show that the phone’s been upgraded. Probability: 95%

LED Flash:
On the one hand, the iPhone’s camera could be better, especially in low light, and a flash could help with that. On the other hand, cellphone flashes are almost universally terrible and useless. Nevertheless, there’s a rumor out there that Apple has ordered “tens of millions” of Philips’ LumiLEDs. Probability: 60%

Push-Button Antenna:
Apple filed a patent for an antenna that pops out like a button. This looks to pretty clearly them covering their asses rather than leaking new product designs, so don’t count on seeing a big, ugly antenna button popping out of the top of the new iPhone. Probability: 5%

Spongey Dock:
This is another weirdo patent, one that in all likelihood will never actually be made. Probability: 5%

A Bumpy Screen:
Yet another patent that could be for a tablet or a phone, this shows a touchscreen device with a screen that “create[s] physical bumps or dots for the user to feel when it is in keyboard mode.” Interesting! But also, merely a patent, and a left-field patent at that. Probability: 5%

You know what’s great? My smartphone puts the world in my pocket. Broadband puts 2,454,399 channels on my HDTV. I can access the internet from a freaking airplane! You know what’s unsustainable? Paying for it all.

Here’s why: a well-equipped geek will, in our research, have a subscription and service bill total of between 200 and 750 dollars a month.

Let me break it down. You’ve got your smartphone bill, your cable bill, your home broadband bill. Those are unavoidable expenses—there’s not much you can do about them.

Then think about the must-have gadgets on the horizon: a smartbook that requires a data plan. A tablet that’ll require Wi-Fi HotSpot access or a 3G dongle. The same for a thin-and-light notebook. And those are just your 1:1 service fees for devices.

Now throw in all of the wonderful content and service subscriptions you either already have or will soon. You’ve got TiVo, which is better and cheaper than most cable-provided DVRs but still about $11 a month. Netflix, to rent or stream unlimited movies. Hulu’s free for now, but we know they’re going to start charging any week. If you’ve got an Xbox 360, you’ve got an Xbox Live Gold membership. I’m a city slicker with no car, but if I had one I’d need a navigation app that’s good enough for everyday use. A free Flickr membership is fine today, but once HD camcorders gain prominence, you’re going to want a Flickr Pro membership for high-def playback. And so on.

If that doesn’t sound so bad, see how it looks when you add it all up:

That’s right: if you want to stay even close to fully connected, you’re expected to cough up nearly $1,000 a month. Not for hardware. For fees. And that doesn’t even include niche services like Vimeo and Zune Pass, or one-off purchases like eBooks or iTunes downloads. Or, god forbid, food and shelter.

A couple of years ago, we talked about the Infinite Video Format War, and the dozen-plus disc-free video formats that each come with their own subscription models, fees, and offerings. There’s still no resolution there. Think of the Subscription War like that, only extrapolated across all of your devices, content, and services.

The problem isn’t subscriptions themselves. Content subscriptions reward risk-taking, which is great! How many movies have you discovered because of a Netflix recommendation? How many shows have you watched on Hulu that you never would have found on your TV’s channel guide? And individually, they seem cost effective.

The problem is fragmentation. The problem is that each service provider thinks within a bubble, without recognizing the larger ecosystem of payments we live in. It’s like those nights in high school when each teacher would assign you two hours of homework. There weren’t enough hours in the day then, and there’s not enough money in a paycheck now. And there shouldn’t have to be.

There are some ways out: you don’t actually need cable or satellite TV to enjoy your favorite shows. If you’ve got a smartphone, you really don’t need a land line, and you can probably get away with the minimum 450 minutes if you lean on messaging and Skype. There are also free navigation apps that’ll work in a pinch. But at the end of the day, you’re still looking at hundreds of dollars a month for services you don’t need constant access to.

So what’s the answer? Well, ad-supported content generally comes free or highly discounted. But ad-supported solutions require people to purchase the things being advertised. Hulu’s plans to start charging indicates that that model’s not sustainable in the long run. One blanket subscription that lets you access several different sites or services works for the online porn industry, but those linked sites all operate under the same umbrella parent company. Not feasible when the participants are major competitors.

The honest answer is that there may not be one. Not yet, anyway. Eventually the monthly bills will stack up so high that people will have to start cutting ties with companies, who will in turn have to either lower prices or fade away. You’ve already started to see it with AT&T and Verizon cutting prices on unlimited plans last week. Until everyone gets on board, though? We’re all just casualties.