Will the Smartphone Era Ever Come to an End?

We’ve come a long way with smartphones. It is just a matter of time when Apple introduced its first iPhone, and now when you look back it’s just surprising that it took only 10 years for the smartphones to reach everybody’s palm, and dominate a pretty big part of our time.

The popularity that these incredible devices received is CRAZY! But yet deserving, as they brought everything to our fingertips, whether it be calling, texting, mailing, capturing and or socializing. There is no doubt that these small devices have brought an enormous change in our lives.

In 2020, the number of smartphone users was about 6.95 billion, a HUGE NUMBER, right? However, everything in this world has a limited life expectancy.

Let me remind you of those old Blackberry phones with physical buttons, they were pretty much famous, and now what? They have become obsolete. Similarly, we are heading towards the end of the smartphone era. But what would be that brilliant, competitive innovation that could outclass the primacy of smartphones?

What Will Replace the Smartphones?

Due to the rapid advancements in Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Artificial Intelligence (AI), these three innovations are assumed to be the cause for smartphones to turn superfluous.

The futurists believe that we’ve just started digging into it, and there’s still a lot more to explore with these three technologies. The futurists also believe that what we are going to experience is that we will not be just accessing the internet, but we will live in it. The three innovations are likely to change our lives more than smartphones did.

The tech companies are focusing on transforming the technologies into wearables. Such devices will work using VR and AR technologies. This will eliminate the use of touch screens and bring the use of voice commands and gestures.

At the moment, we can see some examples of wearables that are already been introduced such as smartwatches, Google Glass, VR headsets. But it’s only the start, and we’ve got a lot more to witness. For now, let’s see what the three technologies offer.

Augmented Reality (AR)

Augmented Reality is now enabling us to experience computer-generated sounds, graphics, videos, and other virtual enhancements in our physical environment. At present, AR is easily accessible to all, because it is being hosted by none other than smartphones.

Smartphones are the best hardware to support AR technology as they have all the components needed to experience AR. Have you played Pokémon Go? Of course, you would have heard of it, the hit gaming phenomena that proved the demand for AR.

Talking about the future, AR technology is expected to include all our senses in the next-generation AR devices. Now, imagine some AR glasses enabling you to do all the things that your smartphone does, all with next-level motion gestures. This type of technology is just around the corner. Who needs those rectangle glass screens when you can do everything at your ease by using gestures.

Virtual Reality (VR)

While AR will change the way of using our phones, Virtual Reality would play an even more important role. VR is a way of experiencing a computer-generated environment with objects and scenes appearing to be real. This virtual environment can be experienced by using VR headsets, which are already introduced in the market. However, this is just the beginning, and we’ve still got a long way to go.

Futurists believe that in the future, it would be hard to differentiate between the actual world and the virtual world. In the future, VR wouldn’t just enable users to see and hear the virtual experiences, but it will also incorporate with our other senses.

Imagine stepping inside a virtual world, where you can enjoy the beautiful view of Lake Michigan, or walking on the streets of London, while sitting in any other part of the world, THAT WOULD BE INSANE! If this amazing technology becomes accessible to everyone, the primacy of smartphones would fade away.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence is another prominent technology already being used among smartphone users, and they are loving it! In 2021, it is estimated that 132 million people in the United States will use digital voice assistants at least once a month.

Now, you don’t need to pick up the phone, open any online grocery store, find products, and order. Siri, Alexa, and Cortana are here for you. Just ask Alexa to order groceries, Siri to make a phone call, or Cortana to help you search for a folder on your computer. It has all become very easy with voice recognition and assistants.

It is still a start for voice recognition technology and voice assistants. In the future, AI will likely be used to google most of our questions and the Google search box would be left empty.

With these technologies set to bring major changes in our daily life, we still have no idea of how long would it take for the advancement? For now, smartphones would host these three technologies. But there will come a time when these innovations would become the reason for smartphone’s extinction, leaving the touch screen displays untouched.