Our smartphones have never been so rugged and boring.
But there’s good news: It doesn’t have to be that way, and tech corporations are making important decisions about what the future of the phone might be.
The hype around synthetic intelligence and incremental innovations in connectivity are driving corporations to not only play games with how things like generative AI can make our phones more interesting, but also to wonder what those devices look like in our wallets, and if they even do. . stay in our wallet at all.
Why do our phones have to be oblong blocks?Why can’t we bring our phones? Why do phones want apps?Do we want screens?
At this year’s Mobile World Congress, the long-term of the smartphone and how we connect it was discussed. Companies have been showcasing bizarre and outlandish concepts at industry showcases like MWC and CES in Las Vegas, however, this year, some of those concepts seemed to come to fruition quickly.
Deutsche Telekom and Brain. ai presented an example at MWC: a smartphone without an app. Instead, the user interacts with an AI assistant, which can do everything from texting friends to booking flights. For now it’s just a concept, but it raises an interesting question: why assume that the long-term smartphone will have applications?
Other corporations think we want to dream a little bigger. Take Humane’s AI Pin, for example, a portable magnetic module that attaches to clothing and replicates many of your smartphone’s tasks. It has a camera that allows you to see what’s going on around you, and instead, from a screen, you can assign text and photographs to your hand.
The device, connected to LTE and housing an AI-powered assistant, drew crowds of spectators eager to see it in action at MWC.
The jury is still out on whether the rumors will translate into sales or good reviews: the pin probably won’t ship until April, and the device’s handling time has been limited to highly controlled demonstrations. It also costs $700.
But it’s a well-funded company (its backers include Sam Altman and OpenAI’s Qualcomm) that’s bringing a new strategy to the smartphone.
There’s also the Rabbit R1, another AI-powered wearable device, this one has a display. Its author claims that you may not update your smartphone right away, but if it is successful, you think it could be.
It’s an option because those devices raise a valid question: If the smartphone were a true private AI assistant, what would it look like?
The answers will keep coming. Altman has tapped Jony Ive, Apple’s former chief design officer, to help him build new AI hardware devices, Bloomberg reported. Meanwhile, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is betting that truly augmented glasses will be the main device we’ll use in the long run. (although he doesn’t think they’re necessarily going to do away with the smartphone. )
“With immersive computing, we’re going to start relying less on the phone screen,” Carolina Milanesi, president of analytics firm Creative Strategies, told Business Insider.
“As we start to think about other points of form like glasses, Meta and what they’re looking to do with AR and XR, there’s definitely an opportunity to share their computing expertise with other devices,” Milanesi said.
Some concepts are more conceptual. Take Lenovo’s cell phone, which folds around the wrist and uses some artificial intelligence to tailor its clothes, or Lenovo’s transparent computer display, which arguably would have made headlines at this year’s MWC.
After speaking with Tom Butler, CEO of Lenovo’s computer line, I’m not convinced that the company has good reason to think other people would use a transparent computer; However, it’s fun to watch and talk about.
“Sometimes we’re ahead of the market, so we present it like that and it sparks conversation,” Butler said.
Many of those concepts will remain precisely as such – concepts – and some probably deserve it (many of us would prefer Will. i. am’s disastrous Pulse Smartwatch, including, presumably, Will. i. am).
But the smartphone industry is in decline and there is a “need to reinvigorate the upgrade cycle,” Milanesi told BI. A collision between AI, 5G, and edge computing may be the best element for companies to test new concepts. And yes, it can be a little weird sometimes.
It may not be a transparent screen. But it can also be anything we use or anything that looks nothing like a rectangle covered in glass. Sometimes, as Lenovo’s Butler said, it’s just a matter of starting the conversation.
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