End of the road nigh for smartphones?
frankfurt — Nearly a decade after the iPhone broke the mould for mobile phones, the question is now being asked whether the evolution of the smartphone has finally come to an end as even Apple now treats older, smaller 4-inch screens as something new.
Industry experts believe innovation in smartphones is giving way to phone functions popping up as software or services in all manner of new devices from cars to fridges to watches and jewellery rather than remaining with handheld devices.
And analysts and product designers said fresh breakthroughs are running up against the practical limits of what’s possible in current smartphone hardware in terms of screen size, battery life and network capacity.
“Everything in the phone industry now is incremental: slightly faster, slightly bigger, slightly more storage or better resolution,” said Christian Lindholm, inventor of the easy text-messaging keyboards in old Nokia phones that made them the best-selling mobile devices of all time.
The financial stakes are high as the futures of Apple, Google and Microsoft, the world’s three biggest listed companies at the end of last year, may now turn on who gets the jump on making handsets redundant.
Many firms are experimenting with new ways to help consumers interact with the wider world through touch, sight and sound.
These include voice-activated personal assistant devices dangling from “smart jewellery” necklaces with tiny embedded microphones or tiny earpieces that get things done for us based on our verbal commands.
The world’s biggest tech companies have made real progress in this arena with Google Now, Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana and Amazon.com’s Alexa now able to read texts or emails for users, answer practical questions, control phone features, handle basic communications or read a map.