IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2016 - 28

reflectionS_BY roBert W. lUcKY

The end of The
SmarTphone?
It's time to start thinking about what's next
Recently I was lIstenIng to a talk-ostensIbly
about the future-in which the smartphone was pictured as an
evolutionary end point that would last indefinitely. I thought,
Nothing is forever, and forever comes very quickly in technology. I started to worry about what would come after the smartphone,
and what the end of the smartphone's dominance would mean to the
electronics industry. * The smartphone has been an incredible success,
both in technological and business terms. I often think of it as the pinnacle of engineering brilliance. There is an entire ecosystem of parts,
systems, software, even design philosophy, that has built up around it.
Anything that can be made from smartphone technology can be made
quickly, easily, and inexpensively. It has been the most successful electronics product ever. * But there are dark clouds on the horizon. The
good news is that practically everyone has one. The bad news is that
practically everyone has one. Moreover, the new models seem to offer
diminishing advances in performance and features that are easily apparent to users. The ads for Apple's iPhone often say that the new model is
its best iPhone ever. Well, duh, of course. Imagine if the ads said that the
new model wasn't quite as good as the previous one! * I remembered
my father's old rotary-dial telephone from my youth. He still had it in the
1990s, and several times I suggested that he should get a new telephone.
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Mar 2016

north aMerican

SPectrUM.ieee.orG

oPinion

"What for?" he would say. "The
new ones do the same thing."
And I would think, He has a
point there.
The standard landline telephone lasted almost a century.
In electronics, this probably
does qualify as being forever.
Meanwhile, other things-turntables, tape decks, cassette players, beepers, and so forth-came
and then were suddenly gone
as if they had never existed (although turntables are making
something of a comeback to cater to the neonostalgic crowd).
Perhaps, like my father's phone,
the smartphone will endure for
decades. But also, like that old
telephone, it may be something
everyone will have, and there
will be no compelling reason to
buy a new one.
Certainly, the smartphone can
be further improved. We need
better battery life, faster and
wireless charging, and I'd like
to see the camera have optical
zoom. But on the other hand,
users may not see the need for
better displays and faster processors. Meanwhile, the supporting
infrastructure will see evident improvements-gigabit wireless speeds, greater
coverage, better integration with Wi-Fi,
and cheaper service plans. However, my
concern here is with the smartphone
itself. I think of it as the little engine
that could-pulling the entire electronics industry in its frantic rush to keep
up with the acceleration required by
Moore's Law. What if that little engine
that could runs out of steam?
I know that I'm asking unanswerable
questions, and my own response is only
to propose a dream goal-that we invent
another electronic device that everyone
wants and needs. Maybe the smartphone
will drive the market, but maybe not. Either way, I feel the need for some new
device that I just can't do without. I look
forward to wanting that new gadget. n
IllustratIon by

Greg Mably

http://SPectrUM.ieee.orG

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum - North American - March 2016