shady28
Platinum Member
- Apr 11, 2004
- 2,520
- 397
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Here are a couple of thoughts on where phones, and more specifically convergence, may go. I don't think we will see a lot of this in 2014, but I bet we start to see it in 2015.
In the past, we had convergence of 4 separate devices into the smartphone. The cell phone, GPS, PDA, and MP3/music player.
The next logical steps :
1 - Convergence of the phone and the tablet. This is probably why the huge Samsung Note series is so popular, but it has limited appeal due to the size. Solution - The PadFone. This doesn't work correctly in the USA yet, but it is an awesome idea and I think its time is near whether Asus does it or someone else :
2 - Dockable phones. Similar to the padfone, the idea of using one device for everything. This would be more for the 'professional' users who want one device to do email, web, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. Motorola pioneered this but the technology really was just not there yet :
(yes, that's a phone on the back of the laptop)
3 - Media center convergence on the phone. This one I'm not so sure about, because I see it being quite inconvenient to have the phone tied up as a DVR \ media center device when it is needed for something else. That said, it appears to be catching on.
So the more I think about this, the more I see phones becoming the center point for the computing environment and possibly the living room as well.
There are some obstacles with battery life and secondary storage size and speed, but I actually have little doubt that the above things and probably more will begin to converge.
Apple has a huge advantage here in that their platform is standard in a hardware sense. Microsoft has this advantage too albeit to a lesser extent. Android pioneered this type of thing but it has some big disadvantages due to lack of hardware interface standards, the fractured landscape of Android phones.
Ultimately I think the above things will happen, it is just a matter of time and who is first to get all the parts working together smoothly for the best user experience.
In the past, we had convergence of 4 separate devices into the smartphone. The cell phone, GPS, PDA, and MP3/music player.
The next logical steps :
1 - Convergence of the phone and the tablet. This is probably why the huge Samsung Note series is so popular, but it has limited appeal due to the size. Solution - The PadFone. This doesn't work correctly in the USA yet, but it is an awesome idea and I think its time is near whether Asus does it or someone else :
2 - Dockable phones. Similar to the padfone, the idea of using one device for everything. This would be more for the 'professional' users who want one device to do email, web, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. Motorola pioneered this but the technology really was just not there yet :
(yes, that's a phone on the back of the laptop)
3 - Media center convergence on the phone. This one I'm not so sure about, because I see it being quite inconvenient to have the phone tied up as a DVR \ media center device when it is needed for something else. That said, it appears to be catching on.
So the more I think about this, the more I see phones becoming the center point for the computing environment and possibly the living room as well.
There are some obstacles with battery life and secondary storage size and speed, but I actually have little doubt that the above things and probably more will begin to converge.
Apple has a huge advantage here in that their platform is standard in a hardware sense. Microsoft has this advantage too albeit to a lesser extent. Android pioneered this type of thing but it has some big disadvantages due to lack of hardware interface standards, the fractured landscape of Android phones.
Ultimately I think the above things will happen, it is just a matter of time and who is first to get all the parts working together smoothly for the best user experience.
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