Samsung Galaxy S3

Canon S110

on how portable your gadgets are, you’ll be keeping a close eye on the tech giants that have fallen on hard times, hoping they make it through the next year.

If you’re a smartphone lover and use BlackBerry and Nokia devices, you’ll be praying that BB10 and Windows Phone 8 operating systems, respectively, turn out to be as powerful as the makers intended.

If you’re a non-iPad user, you’ll be hoping Android tablets get a boost and break out of the shadow of the iPad and now iPad mini.

And if you’re a faithful Windows user, you’ll be hoping the new Surface and other Windows 8 tablets and laptops make a strong go of it, instead of eating Apple’s dust in spite of Windows being installed on 90% of the world’s computers. In an increasingly mobile world, where smartphones outsell personal computers, tablets will likely do the same in 2013.

Android is the new Windows and Apple’s iOS is the new Apple. The high ground is now held by the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy range — accounting for the bulk of the topend smartphones and its profit.

Though tech purists accuse iOS and Android of being staid and behind the times, the new operating systems kids on the block — Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10 — have it all to prove.

But is it too little too late for these fallen giants, Nokia (Microsoft’s preferred handset partner) and BlackBerry? Can they claw their way back up? The year 2013 will be the defining one for them, as it will be for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Critics have accused him of letting Microsoft’s once-dominant position slide, and some have said Windows 8 is his last roll of the dice.

Microsoft and its long-time ally Intel are being overtaken by Android and ARM-based processors, the latter especially from Qualcomm, the biggest little business you’ve never heard of.

The next year will be make or break for industries that could potentially be washed away by new ones.

Shapshak is publishing editor of Stuff magazine