Asking in 2020 what will replace the smartphone feels like asking in 1950 what will replace the motor car.
Augmented Reality contact lenses are the modern equivalent of 1950s predictions of nuclear-powered flying cars.
I don't think smartphones will really be replaced for forty years or more. It sounds like a long time but it really isn't. We've not come that far since the original iPhone. And that itself wasn't that much of a leap from various form factors five to ten years earlier - just a lot slicker in terms of UI. So phones will just get better. One can easily imagine the battery tech improving, perhaps practical rollable or foldable screens, lighter weight, etc. Fundamentally one wants something that easily fits in a pocket (current modern flagship phones are too large), provides a good display for interactive content and allows silent text and voice input.
I think cars, phones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers and TVs will all converge more in terms of control interfaces. There's plenty of evidence of this already with Android Auto in things like the new Polestar 2, the decline of custom TV software in favour of Android/Amazon's FireTV OS, etc. That's felt around the corner for years now, but feels like it might finally happen soon.
Likely will happen at some point. It's the next logical extension of consumer devices after the smart phone. It will happen eventually, except there isn't a clear time table as to when. The concept is general purpose enough that interesting things can be done with it.
Another important point to consider is that the future won't be available to everyone at once - money will prohibit that. I wonder at what point will touchscreens become "old fashioned", and I'm sure they'll see (limited) use for long after that.
I think the future is less/no screen. Typing on these folding phones seems like a worse experience. Typing at all isn't really natural, and neither is staring at planar, glowing glass.
I think the future is conversational computing. I don't own an Alexa/HomePod/etc (yet... maybe some open source on prem thing at some point), but I think that's where the puck is moving. It's just that today their capabilities are somewhere around a rotary phone vs. an iPhone. Better than a telegraph (which I guess in this analogy is _typing_ your words into a document) but still very rudimentary. All it needs is time and effort.
Similar to HomePods, we have AirPods and their equivalents. The phone is just a conduit through which can pass the data necessary for the OS to talk with you, to do what you need.
Agreed! I seem to remember a company that was hacking up MacBooks to make them into touch screens at one point and I totally thought that was the inevitable future we’d be living in. Maybe it’s still in the future, but I’m tired of waiting.
I have to respectfully disagree that this is the future. Is the future comprised of devices that you have to consciously wear on you all the time (I can barely stand to wear the prescription glasses I'm supposed to wear, let alone glasses that will occasionally provide me with some utility)
On top of it, is the future of HCI in devices that you have to talk to? (Siri, Glass) Not only do I have a very hard time getting any voice recognition to understand my non native accent (beyond common phrases), having to talk to your devices is an extremely unnatural thing for me to do, unless I'm in private.
These devices may be futuristic, but this is not the revolutionary future.
I remain firmly convinced that Apple is planning for 10 or 15 years down the line, when there is no special "thing", just face screens that are light and compact enough to start piecemeal replacing phones as a product category.
It's a nice thought but we aren't heading in that direction. The young are almost exclusively brought up on swipe interfaces. The future is likely to be a dystopia of idiot proof GUIs or even worse voice control.
That’s a good point. It’s going to be a long time before someone finds the next “iPhone“ that really changes everything and becomes a new multi hundred billion dollar business.
Driverless cars are the only possibility I can think of right now.
Hopefully nothing. I don't want to go back to phoneless life, and I also don't really want AR Glasses all day.
Wearable bio trackers will happen eventually, but that's a phone accessory, not a phone replacement.
The closest thing to a real replacement may be flip phones, for some people who choose to use them.
However, I very much hope future Androids get side touch scrollbars, and we move the keyboard up by a bunch for less thumb bending. The ergonomics could use some tweaks now that they're primary devices for most. Ideally maybe even put the keys where my thumbs already are when holding a phone, and make content reflow around them.
I could see it being the future. I think expanse has it correct. In the future, mobile devices will essentially be commoditised. If you need one you get one. Once you’re done, you recycle it. They’re essentially shards of plastic with a connection to the internet. Who even cares who made them.
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