Future of Phones

#1

So guys, IDK if a question like this has been asked but my question for the day is…

What is the future of our Smartphones?

For the past decade, we saw the need to make phones smaller, thinner, and faster, then to the wanting of more screen real estate (thanks in part to Samsung for introducing their Note lineup when everyone thought it was ridiculous), Now it seems to be the battle of who will make the first truly bezel-less display with an amazing camera.

Surely, within 5 years, this will happen? But when it does…what next?

Samsung has been teasing the foldable phone for YEARS now, before any other companies had their eyes on this idea, but…similar to how the Note line was criticized when it first came out with their huge phone, would foldable phones be the next step in the battle for companies to get our money?

Do you think AI integration is the future? Or possibly modular phones finally going into production? Or maybe the phone industry will go stale and only the cameras and the internals will be improved until innovation occurs by some company?

What do you think? Comment below!! I would love to hear any ideas and guesses really.

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#2

i think AI integration is the future. Google are great at that as they will keep on developing this in the future.

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#3

Well, AI is probably to come. If you think that already now many questions sent by email or any other digital way are answered by AI - if they are very common questions.

So the AI in your phone answeres the calls - and gives you just a summary. It sounds strange , but might really help you a lot.

If I think of the calls I get and they tell me I have won something or they ask me some questions for a survey - such calls would be gone !

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#4

You should check out the Pixel phone! They have a feature that allows your google assistant to pick up your phone and transcribe what is being said on your screen at real time. You can look at the texts and then decide to hang up or pick up the call. Really really neat.

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#5

yeh the camera and storage on that is way cool though

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#6

Well, then the next step is clear: if the call is already transcribed into text, then some AI can read this text and sort out unimportant calls. And answer some calls. I think this should be possible right now …

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#7

I currently operate 3 phones.

I have the phone on my wrist, an LG Watch Urbane 2. Useful for “not intending to use” situations due to the small screen so not for hard to read, hard to type.

I have a 6" phone, OnePlus6.

(as of today) I have a 10.8" phone with keyboard, a Huawei 10.8" with docking keyboard.

All of these have Google Assistant, of which probably the OnePlus6 is the most reliable. All have LTE, of which the OnePlus6 also has the more coverage, most bands.

I think the future of phones is to get the screen fully out of your interaction and make it more exclusively about media. Your interaction will become voice, you talk to it and it talks back, like a super smart person with you. The bigger phones will become your media consumption, to watch things. The human eye has a resolution limit which some displays are at.

I am hinting to this with my watch and the Anker buds, I can interact to a degree, it is less reliable than with the phone and battery life is nowhere near good enough, but I see the hint of where it can get to in 5 years. Basically you are talking with technology to exchange information, or watching a big screen, and little inbetween.

I also repair and keep alive old tech, I have a 1999 Toshiba laptop which still works, and I repaired last year 2012 and 2013 tech which is still used today, which also makes me think we have over-technologized some functions. A 2012 tablet is as good in resolution and brightness as a 2018 tablet.

As for AI, it is going to be initially limited by the “I” part - the programmer, it cannot substitute for a human currently, try doing and you will hit a wall in less than a minute that it is not that intelligent.

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#8

I think we’ll also see phones become our main “PC” with a docking station, kind of like @nigelhealy mentioned with his tablet. We’ll dock our phones at our desks at home with a keyboard and monitor, and it will provide a full PC-like experience. It looks like Samsung is taking a stab at this with the Samsung DeX, although I remember AT&T having a similar setup years ago (I can’t remember the name of that phone right now).

We have some of this now with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. When I plug my phone into my car, it basically powers the display on my car and provides music, messaging and navigation. The car display then acts like like a second monitor for the phone.

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#9

Very important feature: log in possible only by owner. Via fingerprint, eye, etc.
Why?

The phone includes more and more of very private information. Banking, Payment, Medical stuff and so on.
So if a phone is lost or stolen, it should definitely not be possible to unlock it by other people. Maybe it can be locked additionaly by owner - like you lock your credit card, when lost …

Also important: the GPS function should allow to get the phone back.

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#10

I think the phone itself is nearing its zenith. Once we finally remove notches and embed the sensors and such under the display of the phone the only place for the phone to go from there will be camera/battery/size. The fact that there is a shorter demand for iPhones is commentary on the market saturation.

The Pocophone F1 and stuff like what Samsung is working on like the Galaxy M series of devices show something most interesting in the smartphone industry. The ability to take the flagship level of performance and design and make it cheaper and more affordable.

Perhaps I’m just not a visionary, but I don’t see many more opportunities for innovation beyond what has already been mentioned in this thread about AI, seamless integration with companion devices, etc.

#11

I think you’re right in that I did think of that option, my phone is likely the most powerful electronics I own, I mean its 8 core, 8GB RAM, 256GB flash, and it only lacks interface, in that its size is limited by hands and pockets. We’re already seeing a generation who only use phones. You cast off it to TVs, pair it with your car (car ownership is forecast to plummet as we move to renting by the hour such as Uber or self-driving).

I did think of getting a display item to attach to my phone. Such as this:

The placing of a phone inside a laptop is already a prototype

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