Smartphone technology is improving at a rapid rate and it seems like almost every month, a new phone is being released, with a range of new features designed to make users throw out their existing phone and buy a new one. However, are smartphone manufacturers really providing customers with the improvements they want to see?

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In this article, we take a look at three things smartphone users really want and the reasons behind these requests.

One of the single most requested features for smartphones is smash-proof screens and it is easy to see why. According to a recent survey of 1,729 British adults, carried out by O2, around half of all smartphone users have damaged their screen at least once, with women (54 percent) being slightly more likely than men (47 percent).

The mobile network's research found that 7.5 million people in the United Kingdom are walking around with a cracked screen at any given time, while 20 percent of people with a damaged screen admitted living with it for more than six months. More worryingly, 14 percent of cracked screen owners have been injured by their screen.

With the recent news that Apple have decided to increase the price of iPhone screen repairs, smartphone users are likely to be more desperate than ever for smash-proof screens in the coming months.

As the capabilities of smartphones have increased, so have our expectations. With that said, one area where hardware has not kept pace with the needs of users is storage space. Indeed, research shows that 42% of iPhone users run out of space once a month or more.

This is a problem that is only likely to get worse, as camera resolutions increase and new apps are released. The result is that people look for ways to free up storage space on their smartphone, or have to invest in external storage solutions in order to use their phone in the various ways they want.

Given recent reports, which indicate that some mobile operating systems are now taking up more than a fifth of total storage space, it is surely time that smartphones came with a greater allocation of memory in the first place.

Finally, one of the most common complaints about modern smartphones is the lack of battery life. In fact, an iPhone running iOS 11 will survive an average of just 96 minutes of use before being fully drained. To put this into perspective, the battery on an old Nokia 3310 - first released in 2000 - would last up to two weeks before dying.

To make matters worse, modern smartphone batteries drain faster over time. In fact, many smartphone batteries are only really designed to last a year, with battery life declining significantly after that.

Again, as with the storage problem, this is the result of improvements to smartphone technology out-pacing the actual hardware's capabilities, but it really is about time smartphones were able to survive a full day of usage.