Every blog and paper already published their summaries and lists of both the previous year and decade. I say let’s forget the past, and focus on the future. At least for a little while. I will tell you what you can (might) expect from the future of mobile electronics, maybe not in a year but in 1-5 this is the development I predict.
Since I got my first smartphone I’ve been convinced that it was only a matter of time before the rest of my friends and family followed me into the modern age (i.e. got themselves one of their own). iPhone started exactly that movement. Suddenly there where a phone easy enough, funny enough and produced by a company with enough market share (I’m convinced that an identical phone from HTC for example never would have had the same impact). So slowly my friends and family is jumping on the wagon. What the iPhone started now has turned into friends with HTC Hero, Windows Phone (old Windows Mobile), iPhones and devices from any and all brands. Of course that means that I’m now starting to plan my own jump off from the same wagon. Here’s what I want, and other will figure out in a couple of years:
- Standard phone features e.g. calling, SMS (starting to feel very outdated but, for a few more years) and such
- All my internet needs in a mobile device, including mail (and wave/other collaboration tools), streaming videos, streaming music, reading blogs and news sites
- eBook reader (no use fighting it, sorry librarians and other “paperback-huggers” time to adapt)
- Some games and other miscellaneous stuff.
To read books, extensive articles online and browse the web somewhat comfortable I need a bigger screen than my Samsung Galaxy got (3.2”). The problem is that already a phone of this size sometimes feel a bit clumsy to carry around. When I don’t have a jacket/bag, at a party or on the town, going to the beach etcetera. There’s also an economical aspect in this. My phone suddenly cost the same as an average laptop and that’s before the bigger screen and additional features mentioned above. Phones are easily lost, stolen or broken. Nothing strange there, it’s the same with all things we carry with us everywhere. I remember an interview with a scientist researching crime among youths in Sweden a couple of years back. He/she said that one of the reasons for the increase of robbery against individuals is that we carry much higher values on our persona. We stopped having cash in our wallets but instead we got expensive mobile phones, mp3 players and so on.
Solution? As everything gets combined into the same device (do they still sell mp3 players or cameras without a mobile phone included? :) ) I predict an excelling need for different products for different occasions. I will most likely in the coming two (ehm, one if I know myself) years change my smartphone for a “stupid phone”. That phone should be small, cheap and manage just the basic functions like placing calls, simple e-mail and maybe music. A revival of my old Sony Ericsson K750i maybe? :) At the same time I will buy a tablet that is more of a hybrid of today’s:
- tablets (Archos 5-like);
- ebook reader (nook-like);
- smart phone (Nexus One-like);
- netbook;
- mediaplayer (iPod touch-like).
Combined in one?
This baby will follow me to work and longer journeys, but not on short trips to the town and such. Then once again I will be telling my friends and family: This is the future of mobile electronics!
This post was inspired by numerous blogs and news sites over the year and the pictures are standard ones that’s flooding the web. Any objections to me posting this pictures can be sent to me and I will sort it out. Special thanks to the Swedish site http://www.swedroid.se that always keep me in the loop on Android news.
