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the ultimate mobile phone – early bird registration now open

early British Telecom handset - smart phones for smart people :)We have started to see speculation surrounding the timing and specifications of the Samsung Galaxy SIII. If truth be told such speculations start soon after the release of any new generation of handset whoever the manufacturer is. Such is the interest.

Although for the life of me I can’t understand why people get caught up in this hype I can understand why websites might want to fuel the speculative flames – loads of advertising dosh to be raked in. Note I have refrained from the slightest involvement in such lowbrow activity.

The hype has made me think about mobile handset technology in general. Rather than drill in to the nitty gritty of screen specifications, handset thickness and whether it supports 1080p or not I think it is worth approaching from the perspective of what I want my handset to do for me.

I should not need any other device other than my mobile phone. When I say this I mean PC, Laptop, bedside alarm clock radio, stereo, camera, perhaps even car keys. Some of this is fairly obvious stuff. A lot of it is already happening   – smart phones are replacing low end point and shoot cameras. There is still some way to go with lenses but it will get there. Everything else should be represented by a dock of some sort. Even the tablet will just be something you can slot your Droid into (ok iPhone for the Apple zombies1) or run off it remotely aka Apple TV or RIM Playbook (ish). High quality video is essential. We have all started to get used to High Definition TV. The phone should be no different, especially if it going to become the source of the picture. That expensive big screen TV in the living room has just become another low cost monitor.

I see no reason why I won’t be talking to my phone issuing commands. We can all do this now and it is only a matter of time and Moores Law before this technology becomes properly useful. It isn’t there yet. I should be able to talk over background noises and for the phone to recognise it when I tell it that the TV is too loud or that I want to reply to a tweet or let Anne know I’m going to be late home. Once I get the phone to obey me then surely everything else just follows – it can sort out the applications needed. None of this browsing the Marketplace.

Much of what is needed to perfect the phone of the future is in the communications infrastructure required to support it. If I have reliable fast internet access I don’t need a big hard drive to store stuff. In fact all I need is processing power and bandwidth. Everything else then falls into place. Of course I need the applications but these will all come if everything else is there. If the supercomputer of today is the laptop of 13 hears hence, when will it become the mobile phone I wonder? I’m guessing that I won’t need a supercomputer in my phone though. I don’t yet know how much bandwidth I will need but once I have understood this it should be easy enough to forecast when it will be available.

This handset is a commodity. If I lose it no tears will I shed. I will borrow one of the kids’ or nip out and get a new one. I won’t have lost any data as the data will automatically be available in the cloud. The act of changing handset is simple, quick and efficient – merely a log in and “sync”.

Battery life will never be a problem – it will be something people will read about with interest when browsing through Wikipedia sections on mobile communications history. It will come.

One interesting feature of the mobile world of the future is that handset vendors will have to change to becoming software or service companies. After all one phone will look very much like another – process or and hardware specs will be much the same. This is much the same as has been happening in the PC and PBX markets.

So there we go. I have just described the ultimate mobile phone. I’m taking early bird registrations for those of you who like to be ahead of the pack with these things – just leave a comment.

 

 

1 I never said I was a nice guy

Trefor Davies

By Trefor Davies

Liver of life, father of four, CTO of trefor.net, writer, poet, philosopherontap.com

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