The Future of Smartphones

[soothslyr]

well, we all either have a "smartphone", or are here because we love smartphones. i am sure that no one here can deny how much a part of our lives they are becoming. they are only getting more powerful, and having increasingly spectacular processors, screens, software, and overall spec sheets. thinking about this brought me to an eventual problem. you can only have but so good specs before they become meaningless, and you simply can't take advantage of them in your everyday life.

what you have to remember, is that the original iphone (yes, like it or not, it was the spark that has lead us in this touch-screen smart phone driven direction), innovated based upon existing features. so far, all of the phones that are coming out now, are not "innovating" as much as they are "renovating". this makes me think:

what do you think will be the next market shifting innovation?



P.S. - i don't mean quad core processors, as almost no programs take advantage of them, and they are a meaningless stat jump (see the S4 vs the Tegra 3 chip). i mean a feature that changes the way that we think of smartphones, and how we live, communicate, and think.

and to further clear things up, i am not an iphone fanboy, or a fandroid. even the modern iphones are just stat jumping, just like the android phones are. i am simply looking for unbiased ideas of what you think the future will be.

 

[soothslyr]

nice. +1 the battery innovations.

anything else that you'd like to see? or you think will come next

 

[dancing-bass]

I'm hoping for an advance in battery tech.... it's probably the weakest link in a smartphone. Flexible displays sound cool just not sure on how practical they would be. Other ideas? Standardized charge/sync via pins rather then a USB port - which can be fragile. I'm thinking something like the pins on the Gnex. Inductive charging would be neat to see more common too.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Android Central Forums

 

[wagonburner]

+ 1 for better battery tech and standard charging pins, the mini USB and micro USB Ports are cool and all but they just don't last add long as the test of the phone, also I would love to see better touchscreens come out that are more durable or maybe more augmentEd reality tech would be cool

 

[soothslyr]

nice. +1 the battery innovations.

anything else that you'd like to see? or you think will come next

 

[Pete Sebock]

I think it would be cool to see Holographic Phone/watch that could dispaly video caller ID, pictures movies, social media, etc.... Along with a holographic touch screen that could be changed to fit your personal needs for size, with micro speakers that are better than Bose or Beats Audio....
To me that's a Game changing device.....

 

[dberry74]

how about some of the kinect tech for interactions.?

 

[Buddlespit]

Cranial implants. Projected display onto the retina. Subvocalized microphones.

 

[soothslyr]

i like the kinect-style idea. i think that it is very likely, but a long ways away.

how about a touch screen phone that uses an OLED?

you could wear it as an armband/bracelet, and have all of the functions that you have with a smartphone now. THAT to me is what i think will take over the market in a few years.

 

[SamOliver]

Larger screens, maybe something thin enough so that you can fold it out to be just one big screen.

 

[footballbanker]

1. Pads & tablets will become one with smartphones (Galaxy Note anybody?).
2. Our "handheld computers" will hold all vital information about us whether it be financial, medical, private, relationships. To have somebody's handheld computer will be the same as holding their whole life in your hand.
3. They will control every electronic in our lives. They will be our garage door opener, car keys, TV remote, thermostat, stereo controller.
4. I think the eventual sweet spot for screen size will be 4.8"-6".
5. While at home you will be able to sync a keyboard, monitor, and mouse to your handheld computer and use it just like a old school desktop for word processing, video editing, and photoshop.
6. They will completely replace point and shoot cameras and camcorders.
7. the fact that it is a phone will take a back seat to all the features and capabilities.
8. The will replace cable receivers. All you do is wirelessly stream or HDMI out from your handheld computer to the TV.

 

[phonegeek]

One of the biggest items I believe is that hardware is outpacing the software and OS right now. Quad core processors and storage are great. The OS' IMO are grossly inefficient at using the hardware and that results in poor battery life. I believe the best innovations in the next year or so will be in OS' efficiency resulting in less power needs.

I like the inductive charging idea but it will take a set of standards before companies buy in I believe.

I also believe we are heading for a bloodletting in the carrier area. Carrier networks are poorly managed, poorly run, and are one of the main issues contributing to poor device performance. In most areas of the US the issue is not coverage among the big three carriers. All three carriers in various degrees completely suck at managing their networks. They have too many layers of management and are too slow to adjust to changes in technology.

Apps, or better said crApps is another area. There are some good ones, but IMO 85% of what's out there is garbage or is just so poorly written that they don't work well.

Ok that's my rant and my 2 cents worth. For the record I have been in this industry for nearly twenty years, I've used nearly every device platform that has come along, some are better than others. I don't consider myself a fan of any of them but rather a fan of innovation and as such generally agree with the OP that there isn't much innovation happening these days.

 

[QBert]

I agree with football above. I've thought this for a while, but soon our smartphones will control everything in our lives. You won't have a personal computer any more, just a smartphone. When you get home, you will put it into a dock, which will connect to your TV to stream your cable provider's content, which will also connect to a monitor and keyboard so you can use a "traditional" computer set up. On the go you can dock it into your laptop or tablet (we are already seeing this with the ASUS padphone and BlackBerry Bridge to an extent).

Soon we will be completely tied to our smartphones, which makes the disappearance of unlimited data all the more frightening...

 

[soothslyr]

One of the biggest items I believe is that hardware is outpacing the software and OS right now. Quad core processors and storage are great. The OS' IMO are grossly inefficient at using the hardware and that results in poor battery life. I believe the best innovations in the next year or so will be in OS' efficiency resulting in less power needs.

I like the inductive charging idea but it will take a set of standards before companies buy in I believe.

I also believe we are heading for a bloodletting in the carrier area. Carrier networks are poorly managed, poorly run, and are one of the main issues contributing to poor device performance. In most areas of the US the issue is not coverage among the big three carriers. All three carriers in various degrees completely suck at managing their networks. They have too many layers of management and are too slow to adjust to changes in technology.

Apps, or better said crApps is another area. There are some good ones, but IMO 85% of what's out there is garbage or is just so poorly written that they don't work well.

Ok that's my rant and my 2 cents worth. For the record I have been in this industry for nearly twenty years, I've used nearly every device platform that has come along, some are better than others. I don't consider myself a fan of any of them but rather a fan of innovation and as such generally agree with the OP that there isn't much innovation happening these days.

i completely agree. the software out now is kinda stale. the hardware has seemed to top out. i don't know why any manufacturer is bothering to produce quadcore devices if no software uses more than 2. OS' and apps need to catch up. that's one thing that i can give to the apple crowd, their apps tend to jump on the curve kinda quick. still a ton of crap apps though.

as you said, no innovation right now. we're in a bit of a lul. i just don't see any major changes coming for the next 2+ years or so.

.. unless apple has some superduper magic trick up their sleeve (sorry, they're the only one in the market who's not playing the stat game). i don't think so though. i'm not sure any of the manufacterers have any vision anymore. it kinda saddens me

 

[liteon163]

I think the most important step carriers can take to further encourage the adoption of smartphones is to allocate their spectrum more efficiently. I'm not talking about using more spectrum, just more efficiently using what they already have in place.

There are ways to allow towers to allocate channels to users based on their direction and distance from said tower. If I'm due east of the tower and you're due west of the tower, there is a way for us to both use the same channel but then have the tower keep straight who's who. I've read about this as a method of approximately tripling network capacity.

Taking this perhaps one step further, having radio chips designed to take advantage of certain measures like these and also to recognize weaker signals will help carriers squeeze more capacity out of their "strained" networks. More efficient radio chips will also help batteries last longer. Just look at the integrated LTE on the Qualcomm S4 chipset.

It seems to me that not enough work is being done to improve the networks. It's too easy for carriers to whine about constraints and charge us all more money for less data. A little innovation in spectrum allocation could increase data capacity for everyone.

Oh as far as actual phones go, I think Voice over LTE (VoLTE) will eventually mean the end of "minutes." Once VoLTE becomes prevalent, voice communication will be just another source of data. At some point I think we'll just have to buy bigger data plans but will be able to go without "minutes" as we know them. Or maybe from a marketing perspective a carrier will sell packages that include voice for free so long as you have a high enough data cap.

Besides, how many people really talk that much on their "phones" anymore?

 

[phonegeek]

I think the most important step carriers can take to further encourage the adoption of smartphones is to allocate their spectrum more efficiently. I'm not talking about using more spectrum, just more efficiently using what they already have in place.

There are ways to allow towers to allocate channels to users based on their direction and distance from said tower. If I'm due east of the tower and you're due west of the tower, there is a way for us to both use the same channel but then have the tower keep straight who's who. I've read about this as a method of approximately tripling network capacity.

Taking this perhaps one step further, having radio chips designed to take advantage of certain measures like these and also to recognize weaker signals will help carriers squeeze more capacity out of their "strained" networks. More efficient radio chips will also help batteries last longer. Just look at the integrated LTE on the Qualcomm S4 chipset.

It seems to me that not enough work is being done to improve the networks. It's too easy for carriers to whine about constraints and charge us all more money for less data. A little innovation in spectrum allocation could increase data capacity for everyone.

Oh as far as actual phones go, I think Voice over LTE (VoLTE) will eventually mean the end of "minutes." Once VoLTE becomes prevalent, voice communication will be just another source of data. At some point I think we'll just have to buy bigger data plans but will be able to go without "minutes" as we know them. Or maybe from a marketing perspective a carrier will sell packages that include voice for free so long as you have a high enough data cap.

Besides, how many people really talk that much on their "phones" anymore?

You're correct that not enough is being done to improve the networks. The carriers are driving a lot of changes but the major problem is the OEM MFGs that supply them with the gear to run their networks. The Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia-Siemens, Ericsson's of the industry are driving equipment changes based on bottom line numbers first, consumer needs second. There are engineering decisions being made by the OEMs specifically designed to keep driving more money into their pockets. The equipment can be made and designed to be completely upgradable at this point but it isn't. Switch gear, cell site gear can be made so that you simply do card swaps to add technology but it's not. It's made so that you have to swap entire pieces of gear out to do upgrades. All this costs money which one of the reasons prices remain high.

Not intending to let the carriers off the hook either. Their structure is grossly inefficient, all the carriers are carrying between 20% and 35% too much staff. There are too many layers of management, no accountability because they've split things up to the point where all anyone does is point the finger at the next guy...

 

[mountainman]

The wallet will be totally replaced by the smartphone. NFC will become the norm for payments, ID's, etc...

And like someone else pointed out, no more tablets or computers with dedicated chips - everything will run off the processing power of your "device".

 

[Crispy]

The problem with the 'one device everything' idea is not technical but monetary greed and political - companies will never agree to a single standard which can interoperate with everything else. They make too much profit from differentiating themselves and forcing consumers to upgrade. It happens in every single consumer space.

Do you imagine a day will come when companies like Apple/MS/Linux, cable companies, ISP's, carriers will have the same standards, both in hardware and software. They have zero incentive to do so.

 

[dboftlp]

I want to be able to customize my mobile device like I can my computer from components. Then have my local home system stream my custom OS down to my device OTA directly into memory (like a mobile chard of my home system), which allows me to connect to my carrier of choice & launch all my apps from the web. Nothing lives on the device itself and all my data is secured in the cloud with regulated security standards that are transparent and mandated. Is that too much to ask?

 

[CrackBerry1526]

IMO the hardware has already come to a place where it doesnt matter any more (quad core, a15 processors), camera will get better and it already is replacing point and shoot camera. the only thing left is to get 1080p screens which is useless, and unified charging ports for ALL electronic devices. the designs will (and already is) become a thing where a company patents it so no one else can copy(apple) and i doubt that the design is going to be drasticly diffrent from now on. LTE is already enough speed (although is it ever enough ) but im assuming we wont have anything faster thatn 2100mhz lte for the next 10-20 years. the software will eventually just be all about simplicity and energy savings. the battery will get bigger or better (or both is even better). and i hope some cool things come to smart phones like holograms(HOPE).