When started, have you imagined that PCs and laptops will become obsolete one day. No, right? Soon enough the Smartphones will die too. Shocking isn’t it? But that exactly what going to happen one day, not too soon, but still sooner than you think, the way beepers and desktops did before. If you are planning to invest your bucks into a new smartphone, STOP!
No other device in history has embedded in our lives more than the smartphone. Ask me to forego my beloved smartphone for two days and chances that I started thinking you an insane; as life without a smartphone is like living a life in a distressed island with no connections at all. From checking work emails to chatting on Facebook and ordering food to receive directions, smartphones have the most significant share in our lives, even more than a PC at times.
Nobody can argue the fact that mobile technology has completely changed our lives, the mobile industry is outpacing rapidly regarding online technology, growth, and convenience. We are eating, sleeping and even doing less s** since the smartphone age; do you know, the smartphone penetration would reach around 2.5 billion by 2019, but still, the technology in our palms would turn into something that we can’t think of.
A Lookback to a Smartphone
The mobile revolution has been quick, and that of the smartphone has been even quicker; imagine the intensity of next big thing that will influence our lives. 1973 is not that far when Motorola pioneered the first mobile call, and in 1994, the IBM Simon Personal communicator released their a sleeker yet advanced brick phone; the success of mobile technology begins.
Are you serious? My smartphone is really dying?
No! I mean yes, but still there’s a decade to go for any significant shift away from a smartphone; if by 2028 we’re all cyborgs, I will happily chew my words back. Believe me, piece by piece, the ground for the dead of the smartphone has already been set by some major tech giants like Amazon, Elon Musk, Facebook, Microsoft, and other countless startups.
One thing is clear, as the smartphone era come to an end, the world would be same place as it is now; not just in respect to products but to our lifestyle as well. Why? Because, before PCs and Laptops people were leaving happily and then come Smartphone which turned out a great blessing, but it will be replaced in future, definitely a new technology will take it place. Let’s march on the slow and ceaseless road towards the death of smartphones; how the post-smartphone world would look like?
In the short run
We all consider smartphones as revolutionary devices; smartness is enough to carry anywhere, take pictures, handle daily tasks and full of a right mix of GPS, sensors and music player that allows us to use apps like Uber, Musically, Snapchat, etc.
Let’s take the same smartphone from another angle, the laptop and PC requires a combination of a mouse, keyboard, and a monitor, while smartphone follows the same model and shank it, making the input touch-based and virtual. Take the example of iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S8; they are gorgeous with a bezel-less screen with some real power; it’s impressive, but don’t you think it’s more a refinement than a revolution.
Witnessing devices like Gear VR, iWatch, PS VR and Amazon Echo, it’s expected that more and more large and small tech companies will take more gambles and conduct more experiments to bring a next big wave in the user interfaces.
One step further
In this phase, all the experimental and first-stage tech will merging into something extraordinary yet bizarre-to-believe innovations. The best example here to quote is the augmented-reality headsets that Google, Facebook, Microsoft and even Apple also rumored to be working to build one. Standalone cloud-flat would possibly replace the smartphone, the TV and everything with a screen; no more using handheld devices as everything would be beamed into your eyes and overlain in the external world.
Apple’s AirPods, Amazon Echo and AI like or Apple’s Siri, Samsung’s Bixby, Amazon’s Alexa, and Microsoft’s Cortana are some more additions in the list; now real life and the technology would blend seamlessly, isn’t scary that computers hijack our senses?
No matter what, these promises of significant companies would reduce the tech distractions and bring more harmony, as digital and physical world would be the same; you have to decide how you will feel about that?
Hold on! The crazy future is yet to come
Relax back and think of the time when you don’t have to wear anything, not even the pair of glasses, isn’t craziest? Some of unpredictably advance and forward-looking tech is ready to go even further, for that you need to wait a couple of decades.
Reportedly, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX introduced a company with an aim to building computers into our brains by implanting tiny electrodes. He developed an early-stage tech “Neural Lace” to lay in the human brain and connect to a computer; robotic humans is no more a dream. Assuming this tech would logically the endpoint of the smartphone era. If smartphone allowed us to access the information and augmented reality will put the info in front, while neural lace in brains would possibly close the gaps.
The idea behind human/machine interaction is undoubtedly terrifying, technologists, science-fiction writers, and even philosophers would ask what makes us humans in the first place? Anyways, the idea is new so, nobody has projected the real idea of how the life would look like.
So, the smartphone would leave more technologies behind than we can think of, let’s cross fingers for the best. One thing is for sure to happen; we will not be holding latest gadgets in hands, showing our extravagant lifestyle to our frenemies rather our bodies would be full of digital information.
A big thanks to a smartphone as lots of technologists attributed smartphone as superpowers for knowledge, wisdom, and abilities; however, our mind would be the ultimate superpower, or maybe I am just being an optimist.
Can you imagine a life without Smartphone?
Hmm, frankly speaking, the current addiction enforcing me to say no, but being human, we tend to change and get used to the things we never think of having it in the first place. Keep using your smartphone safely following high-end encryption with fastest internet connection that helps you to avoid vulnerabilities that are there in the cyber world; you never know when this smart device would lose its charm and become none other than a part of our heritage.
