Talking tech

With smartphones now in their ‘mature’ phase, what new miracles do people expect?

Duncan Bell ponders the inherent plateau effect of the tech industry. So how do you improve upon perfection?

People love concept flip phones or Nokia revivals, but nobody wants to buy them

It’s quite hard to feel pity for tech and financial behemoths such as Apple, Samsung and Sony. You know, what with them running the world, and making as much money as you lot put together in a year, in the time it’s taken you to read this.

Even so, I do feel a little sorry for them when Big New Phone Launch Day comes along. Then everything they’ve worked and sweated and fought over for the last year is greeted with that weirdest of combinations: five-star reviews and massive yawns all round.

Samsung Galaxy Zzzzz

Samsung was the latest to get this treatment when it unveiled the Galaxy S9 in Barcelona where, to Catalan story short, it was not basqueing in approval. Sorry.

Everyone loved its bezel-lacking, come-hither looks and wonderfully advanced camera.

And yet at the same time, everyone seemed to hate its lack of innovation. Just as everyone said they hated the lack of innovation on the last iPhone and, if we’re being honest, on every flagship phone since either the Galaxy S7 Edge or iPhone 5, depending on your personal OS allegiance.

But what do people mean when they yak on about this pressing matter like massive babies who’ve never had an original thought?

What new features there are get decried as gimmicky, too. I mean innovations such as animated emoji that superimpose your face on a talking turd; unlocking using your ear; augmented reality; split-screen multitasking; unlocking via your personal scent; virtual reality; actual reality – all that sort of thing.

Yet seriously, come on, what do people expect? Ask a member of the public or even a tech expert what ‘innovations’ they expect to see in new phones and they start going, “Erm, well, y’know… new stuff. Phones are boring man! Remember the first iPhone and early Android phones? Man, that was exciting. C’mon!”

I’d have to disagree. Fact is, smartphones are the absolute pinnacle of human technological achievement to date and have changed the world multiple times over. In an incredibly short period of time they have gone from a very solid version 1 (the original iPhone) to achieve near perfection in terms of aesthetics, tactility, form and function. And you cannot easily improve on perfection, though lord knows I try every day.

“But phones all look the same!” That’s another cry of the jaded masses, even as they grow hungry to suckle once again on the teats of Mother Consumerism. Seriously, what can be done about that? A flat rectangle with a screen on it is the perfect shape. It’s the only shape. There’s always interest in concept flip phones, old-school Nokia phones, but nobody really wants to buy them.

Having a bigger and longerlasting battery is something else people always go on about – quite rightly, to be fair. Yet when brands bring out more bulbus phones, with greater stamina, they tend not to do well either.

All that is just tinkering with the standard design anyway. Seriously, try to come up with a genuine innovation. It’s really hard.

The best I could think of was some sort of security feature whereby the phone knows it’s been stolen (via fingerprint or a Bluetooth link to a wearable being broken, or, erm, something) and immediately starts giving off electric shocks, and screaming in a really disturbing way.

The second best innovation I could think of was a voicecontrolled earpiece that does just what a phone does, but via voice. But of course, that’s not a phone.

Until phones do morph into something else entirely – an implant in your head, a clever robot dog who is also your servant, whatever – minor improvements are all we’re going to get. Don’t think of that as a bad thing, though. Think how lucky we are to live in a time when technological perfection has been achieved. Next up: world peace.