Smartphone Innovation

Jessica Dolcourt, in "Smartphone innovation: Where we're going next (Smartphones Unlocked)" via CNET, writes a comprehensive piece about the future of smartphones. (It's not just about the hardware!) 

Smartphone innovation: Where we're going next (Smartphones Unlocked) 

Smartphone advancements are on the edge of transforming in some crazy ways, but it isn't like you think. 

by Jessica Dolcourt  April 13, 2013 9:00 AM PDT 

The HTC One has a gorgeous chassis and a ton of camera tricks, the Samsung's Galaxy S4 pauses and unpauses video when you avert your gaze, and in the Lumia 920, Nokia was one of the first to introduce wireless charging and an ultrasensitive screen you can control while wearing gloves.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Yet compared with the real meat of what you do with a phone -- things like communicating with people, browsing the Internet, snapping photos, and playing games -- today's top phones are mostly all on par. Software and hardware extras that extend beyond the basics, while impressive, convenient, likable, and even useful, still amount to fancy filler. 

All of today's technology will certainly improve: cameras will get sharper and clearer, processors faster, screens stronger, and batteries longer-lived. But in tomorrow's tech world, that "filler" may be the more compelling story. 

With his shaggy, sandy blond hair and a 5-o'clock shadow, Mark Rolston, the creative director for Frog Design, has studied technology for the better part of two decades. As he sees it, smartphones are just about out of evolutionary advances. Sure, form factors and materials might alter as manufacturers grasp for differentiating design, but in terms of innovative leaps, Rolston says, "we're at the end of gross innovation for smartphones." 

That isn't to say smartphones are dead or obsolete. Just the contrary. As Rolston and other future thinkers who study the mobile space conclude, smartphones will become increasingly impactful in interacting with our surrounding world, but more as one smaller piece of a much large, interconnected puzzle abuzz with data transfer and information. 

We'll certainly see more crazy camera software and NFC features everywhere, but there's much, much more to look forward to besides. 

The innovations include 

• Sensors that track the world in real time -- sensors including for atmospheric pressure, temperature, and humidity, in addition to the standard ones for movement, speed, and rotation (gyroscopes), and lighting. 
• Applications that tightly integrate with sensors. 
• Gestures and touch-less input. (See also http://www.william-garrity.com/blog/2013/3/6/human-computer-interface.html.) 
• Devices even more tightly integrated into networks, including social networks. 
• Smartphones as central to wearable technology. 

See the full story at the link for surprising examples/scenarios of the above, and for more information.