A few years ago, we had high-end smartphones equipped with 1GHz processors and 5 megapixel cameras. One year ago, the processor cores doubled and the megapixel count jumped to 8MP. Now, it seems that 4 cores just aren’t enough, and we’ve seen more than 41 megapixels of rotating cameras.
Yes, my friends, today’s smartphones are evolving at such a rapid pace that it is becoming more and more difficult to try to predict what mobile manufacturers will come up with in the next year or two.
Smartphones Then
It used to be that smartphones were just high-end phones with tons of features used by power users, geeks, business people and the wealthy. They’re like Mercedes-Benz AMG cars, with plenty of horsepower and an outrageous price tag that the average consumer doesn’t need. They are unpolished and only suitable for certain people with the right lifestyle. They are feature-rich, but still largely limited in terms of the robustness of their respective ecosystems.
Hard to imagine that Smartphone Sony Ericsson P990, for example, is quite outdated compared to today’s smartphones. It used to rule the market, as it is excellent for both personal and business applications. It is well designed and packed with features. It feels like 2006, the year the P990 was released, not that long ago, but when you consider this particular phone model and compare it to the Samsung Galaxy S III or even the iPhone 4S, there’s really no contest.
Smartphones Now
Now, everyone has a smartphone to some extent, and this kind of demand only drives up the rate at which manufacturers produce model after model, year after year. Phones have become slimmer, more powerful, easier to use. People are not short of options, from entry-level smartphones to the kings of the hill issuing them under the flagships designation.
For all intents and purposes, smartphones are getting smarter all the time. Development never stops, and from all aspects of production, manufacturers are always looking for improvements and new features. From the operating system to the glass material used for the screen, it’s all about manufacturers trying to complement each other. Not that we’re complaining—the competition is driving down prices and pushing phone manufacturers to give their best effort.
In a few years time, you may be playing epic PlayStation 3D games right on your phone. You may receive a holographic call through your smartphone RingCentral telephone service. The megapixel count may get so high that you have no idea how you’re going to upload all your media to your FaceBook timeline—even if mobile Internet speeds at the time make our current 3g/4g connections more like dial-up.
We have a pretty good idea of how fast technology is evolving, changing, and evolving. Even so, however, it still seems a little inconceivable to most of us average smartphone users how the “next best thing” will look like, let alone what will be inside. These things could have an Allspark in them eventually, as far as we know.
It’s almost scary to think about getting a new phone because you know there’s always going to be something bigger and better just a few months away. Now that is something we all have to live with now that we are dealing with phones that are getting smarter.
