For tech, it gets worse before recovering
MAKE no mistake: 2018 is a year the tech industry wishes it could forget. But 2018’s problems aren’t going anywhere.
It was the year we came to grips with how little we can trust Facebook and how much we’re addicted to our screens. It was the year that online hate and misinformation became an unavoidable reality and Google, Microsoft and Amazon faced revolts from their own employees over ethical lapses. It was the year Apple became the first trillion dollar company - and then lost US$250 billion (RM1.05 trillion) when we yawned at its new iPhones.
When my Washington Post colleagues and I looked into a crystal ball to make this list of intentionally provocative headlines we might see in 2019, it was hard to see past the problems we’re bringing with us into the new year.
New technologies like 5G networks, alternative transportation and artificial intelligence promise to change our lives. But even these carry lots of caveats in the near term.
I’m still optimistic technology can make our world better. So here’s a glass-half full hope for the new year: 2019 is tech’s chance to make it right. Apple is going to squeeze more money from you.
With people waiting longer and longer to upgrade their iPhones, Apple isn’t just interested in selling hardware anymore. Now it’s doubling down on being a services company, too. Apple subscription offerings already include Apple Music for songs, iCloud for storage and AppleCare+ for repairs. Next up: Subscriptions for news and video.
But as Apple pushes deeper into entertainment, it’s going to need a few frenemies to get its content out of iPhones and onto the biggest screens in our homes. Apple doesn’t have a reputation for playing well with others, but already, in December, it took the once-unthinkable step of making Apple Music work with Amazon’s top-selling Echo speakers. Tesla survives, but gets real competition.
Like him or not, Elon Musk is our new Steve Jobs. Through his maniacal product focus - and sometimes despite his erratic behaviour - Tesla survived “production hell” on its massmarket electric Model 3 in 2018 and even eked out a profit.
But more tests await Tesla: It needs to prove its chops in autonomous driving, which Musk has been talking up for years.
And soon, Tesla will have serious electric car competition, meaning it needs to hurry up and sell a car for the US$35,000 Musk originally promised for the Model 3 in 2017. 5G cellular networks arrive and wow few at first.
After years of hype, nextgeneration 5G networks from AT&T and Verizon are finally popping up in American cities, with the promise of blazing-fast internet speeds over the air for phones, cars, gaming gear and all sorts of connected devices.
But it probably won’t change your life in 2019. That’s because these initial networks are limited to particular neighbourhoods - not entire cities. It will take years for 5G to be as common as the 4G LTE Networks we use today. Meanwhile, expect marketing wars where carriers try to convince us their not-really-5G networks are already 5G.
And then there’s a hardware problem: The first devices that can take advantage of these networks are just WiFi hotspots. Apple will wait until at least 2020 to put 5G into iPhones, according to leaks. Samsung has promised it will release a 5G-compatible smartphone at some point in 2019, but the increased demands of the new network are likely to drain the battery quickly. Samsung debuts a folding smartphone, and it’s mindbendingly expensive.
After a long dry spell, smartphone design is about to get interesting again. Samsung plans in 2019 to sell a phone that unfolds like a book to reveal a 7.3-inch screen inside. Samsung will have to prove its Infinity Flex Display is more than a gimmick, but the idea is that it gives us access to both a really big phone for working and watching video and a small pocket-size phone at the same time.
If you’re intrigued, you’d better start saving up now. Samsung, like Apple, is looking for reasons to price phones more like laptops, as we wait longer and longer before upgrading. With all that new hardware, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Samsung’s new phone touch US$2,000 (RM8,400) or beyond. Who would be the ones laughing all the way to the bank? — Washington Post.