Mobiles of the future

Russinating · 22 Dec 2010 at 10:59

We're approaching another year and it still boggles me how far we've come in the past year with regards to technology, medicine, media, engineering etc and also obviously for this forum, mobiles.

Back in 2000/2001 this was pretty much THE phone to have:

Text your mates? Check. Interchangeable covers? Awesome! Need anything else? Hell no!

Assuming Moore's law also applies to mobiles and our advancement in them doubles every 18 months, where do people think we'll be at in 2020? Equally, where will tablets be? I can't see the two living side-by-side forever being so similar.

I'd love to imagine a space-age culture with implanted micro chips, keyboard on your arm (if not just think to talk/type), but I think that's a little bit off. What I can personally see (without being any kind of mobile industry worker at all!) is phones simply becoming more powerful, thinner - but not necessarily that smaller - and generally becoming more of a central part of our lives. Apps to control your home's heating and appliances will be standard, as will sat navs, media players etc. Specialist MP3 players will be defunct. One thing that gives us some other ideas is this:

It'll also be interesting to see what they do with flexible screens:

Will we have phones that are pretty much just a sheet of plastic, worn like a watch bracelet, that wirelessly charge/stream music etc? Will you be able to fold it up to wear it as a 4x2" display that wraps around your wrist, and then unfold it into a 4x6" display for watching videos and showing photos on etc?

Or will we simply go from this...

...to this?

sarge78 · 22 Dec 2010 at 11:16

Macky · 22 Dec 2010 at 11:35

A good phone for me would be a phone with great media capabilities, HD video playback and output, the lot. Yet with an awesome battery life even when watching video's etc.

IamMed · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:11

Russinating said:
Back in 2000/2001 this was pretty much THE phone to have:

Nokia 6210

Text your mates? Check. Interchangeable covers? Awesome! Need anything else? Hell no!

6210 didn't have interchangeable covers

lemonkettaz · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:16

Surely the shape can't change too much? Once it's a screen what else can it go too...

Obviously what it can do will always change. A folded up bit of plastic doesn't sound appealing

Lakeland · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:19

As mentioned, a phone that does everything, inc track where you go and feed info back to central gov', and a form of ID instead of the card.

[TW]Fox · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:20

IamMed said:
6210 didn't have interchangeable covers

I think he is thinking of the 3210, not the 6210. The 6210 was the high end business handset, the 3210 was the very popular consumer phone with changeagle covers.

Russinating · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:22

[TW]Fox;18053919 said:
I think he is thinking of the 3210, not the 6210. The 6210 was the high end business handset, the 3210 was the very popular consumer phone with changeagle covers.

That was the phone! Found it ridiculously hard to find a timeline of popular phones and my 10 year memory isn't so good. Updated OP

.

Lakeland · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:25

Russinating said:
That was the phone! Found it ridiculously hard to find a timeline of popular phones and my 10 year memory isn't so good. Updated OP .

http://www.brigidsflame.com/feymorgaina/nokia_timeline.jpg

Russinating · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:27

Oh fu

. Nice find though. Never seen the 6822 before (2005).

Abraham · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:35

Macky said:
A good phone for me would be a phone with great media capabilities, HD video playback and output, the lot. Yet with an awesome battery life even when watching video's etc.

This is the only area that currently needs real development and innovation.

IamMed · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:36

[TW]Fox;18053919 said:
I think he is thinking of the 3210, not the 6210. The 6210 was the high end business handset, the 3210 was the very popular consumer phone with changeagle covers.

3210 was a pretty good phone too, but even though it was slimmer and had no external aerial I preferred the 6150 I had before (and after) it.

6210 did have a changeable tab at the bottom though, which was utterly pointless

Had one when they first came out on a £15 per month 12 month contract, them were the days

Amp34 · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:54

I really don't see the fascination with seethrough screens. 1, it means you can see through them, way to make the reading difficult, and 2, others can see what you're looking at (from something innocent like a present on the internet to something more provocative like that special photo of your GF...

).

Personally I don't think dedicated mp3 players will go byebye either. They still have the advantage of battery life and size over phones and will always have that advantage as improvements in battery life will be added to mp3 players as well. Size wise we want big phones for the screen but small mp3 players just to hold music. The market could reduce though if the MS advert for future tech is correct though, with it's folding phone thing that can be unfolded when you want a bigger screen... (This sort of thing also indicates to me that tablets will not die either, people want bigger screens, which is why the current generation of tablets is becoming so popular.)

I also don't think we will have ultrathin phones around either, there is something to be said for having something of a certain thickness to hold, around 1cm does seem to be the optimal size for larger phones, just imagine holding a 4" screen that was a mm thick, you'd look like Stark up there who doesn't look very comfortable.

I'm all for small phones with Pico holoprojectors though so you start with a small item as your phone but can then watch films/view ictures with the pico screen.

apatia77 · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:58

Current smart phones are just mini computers really. Shame they just cost so much to buy. £500+ for the top models really is ridicules. I really wonder how much do they cost to make.

clv101 · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:02

IamMed said:
6210 didn't have interchangeable covers

I had the 6210, that picture isn't it. That's a 3210.

Macky · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:45

apatia77 said:
Current smart phones are just mini computers really. Shame they just cost so much to buy. £500+ for the top models really is ridicules. I really wonder how much do they cost to make.

£100 for a relatively similarly specced smartphone, the Orange San Fran.

Russinating · 22 Dec 2010 at 14:01

apatia77 said:
Current smart phones are just mini computers really. Shame they just cost so much to buy. £500+ for the top models really is ridicules. I really wonder how much do they cost to make.

Probably pittance to actually manufacture, but then you have to take into account all the company's other operating costs which need to be covered from this - design, engineering, software development, marketing, sales, admin, customer support, logistics, real estate etc.

Still, it's obviously a decent profit but no different to any other item.

Amp34 · 22 Dec 2010 at 15:02

Macky said:
£100 for a relatively similarly specced smartphone, the Orange San Fran.

Problem is like most things it costs more and more to get to that slightly better state.

I.e. the San Fran will cost a lot less than a Desire HD to manufacture, doesn't mean they don't make a good profit from it thogu.

Azza · 22 Dec 2010 at 15:10

I don't think we'll see vast improvements for a while with regards to having ultra thin phones which are basically a screen etc.

Battery life is what needs to be improved next, augmented reality is going to become the next big thing for phones I think, given how good cameras are becoming now.

Morba · 22 Dec 2010 at 15:14

Integrated video calls into glasses, along with sat nav and AR.

I'd like to be phone functionality being brought into a phase where the phone is not needed to be in your hands.

So what you see through your glasses you can control with your hands, kinda like Minority Report, but what you see is in your glasses, not on a screen a few metres in front of you.