“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all…” JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien may be onto something … – and the cell phone industry certainly seems ready to embrace the concept of “One Device to do it all.” Smart phones have become the multi-tool of the 21st century, although I’m personally still eagerly awaiting the first models to feature a folding knife and a pair of pliers in the accessories list. Preferably, this phone would be rubberized, water and dirt proof too.
Meanwhile, I am excited to see that it’s getting easier to use smart phones to find these dirty, wet places. Last week, Google announced it will offer free GPS service for smart phones using its open-source Android operating system. Google’s announcement instantly led to a decrease in the stock values of traditional GPS for-pay services and device providers Garmin and TomTom by 16 and 21 percent, respectively, according to the New York Times. Google’s free navigation system comes with all you expect from a GPS device: 3D views, turn-by-turn voice guidance and automatic route recalculation. All you need is a smart phone.
And today, Motorola is releasing its newest smart phone, the Droid, which instantly starts Google’s GPS navigation app once placed in the car bracket (sold separately). Now we’re talking one smart phone. Unlike Apple’s iPhone, the Droid can multi-task apps – it can be used as a navigation tool while you’re talking on the phone and listening to MP3s. Oh, yes, and unlike the iPhone, the Droid – and certainly any new smart phone to follow – is totally customizable; you can consolidate all your e-mail accounts, the OS supports Microsoft’s Exchange e-mail, and you can add your Facebook and Twitter widgets to the home screen. You want a knife and an LED flashlight with that? Sure.
But Google’s free GPS app is just the beginning. Within the next two years, smart phones will be outperforming the laptop, says Bob Tedeschi, New York Times technology columnist. He adds that today’s new smart phones can do almost anything a PC could do in 2007.
For instance, Nokia’s senior vice president Henry Tirri says cell phone camera lenses will double as binoculars, and even augment reality by fetching close-up images of what’s up there in the distance from the internet. Software that knows what you want, makes reservations for you based on general requests for “something casual, Italian and fairly close to work” is also on the horizon, according to reports coming from cell phone manufacturer SRI International’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. SRI also hints that within a couple of years, typing on a touch screen will feel like hitting individual keys.
Now, if only someone would recognize the need to harness all of these capabilities in a more rugged device… and I’d like that folding knife and pliers with my next cell.
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11 Comments, Comment or Ping
Melissa
This IS very exciting, indeed — “For instance, Nokia’s senior vice president Henry Tirri says cell phone camera lenses will double as binoculars, and even augment reality by fetching close-up images of what’s up there in the distance from the internet.”
– but what about the actual quality of the phone call?
Right now w/AT&T’s terrible service, I sometimes wish I’d gotten a separate phone from another carrier (one that’s uber-durable, might I add) — and just gone w/the iPod Touch for all the fancy features of the iPhone, not one of which is the phone.
I just hope manufacturers will also focus on voice quality, speakerphone capabilities, and reception while adding in all the fantastically out of this world awesome functions like a swiss army knife
Nov 6th, 2009
schevi
I totally agree on the most primitive use of the cell – CALLING. I currently have a low-tech nokia that simply calls, texts, and does rudimentary email and web. but the voice calls are excellent. and, even if the phone is not weather proof (I hate to admit that I carry it in a ziplock bag when i go skiing, biking or trail running…), it is light and easy to use.
Nov 6th, 2009
r4 card
Ring tone always the way of identification that your mobile or some others mobile .Thank you for this post.
Nov 7th, 2009
pluyckx
You may be on to something. The NYT ran a story yesterday on turning cellphones into microscopes: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/business/08novel.html?em
Nov 8th, 2009
Meg J
I think making phones more rugged is definitely the way to go. I had a LG Vu for about sixth months, and I have to admit the touchscreen was pretty cool… until I had to make a phone call when it was raining. I tried my best to keep the phone dry, but as it was drizzling, it got wet. Two weeks later, it was unresponsive, and all I could do was use the call button; I couldn’t even access my contacts. So when it came time to buy a new phone, I avoided touch-screens at all costs…
Nov 8th, 2009
Margery Nabors
I think you have touched on some of the major advancements that have enabled us to consolidate our purse (and car) full of hardware to just once single device, the smartphone. Though I still have a TomTom GPS, an Ipod MP3 player, a flashlight, a hand held video camera, a digital camera, a portable DVD player, a mini hard drive, a TV, and a laptop (etc. etc.), I am using them less and less. Why? Because I can.
That being said, I believe smartphones will fall short of the expected functionality of many of these aforementioned devices. In my opinion, the smartphone will reach a threshold of sophistication. It will never replace an HD video camera (for one, the iPhone doesn’t even have a flash yet), and will never replace a 53″ TV monitor to watch the big game. Yes, expect the smartphone to enable you to consolidate the devices you carry around on a day-to-day basis (if you haven’t already), but don’t expect it to replace many of them. I would posit we can only expect this “one device to do it all..mediocre.”
What’s more, even if the smartphone becomes mediocre at a number of tasks, how willing are you to become dependent and trusting of a single device that on average is lost 12Mx a year?
Nov 13th, 2009
Dean Hudson
I think the key advances that have been driving this shift are:
- SDKs for app development
- App distribution models (Android app store, Apple App Strore)
- Fully functional browsers (with complete DOM/CSS/JS support) on mobile platforms.
The last is of particular interest because it’s enabled the development of Web Apps for mobile platforms which allow developers to leverage a single skill set to produce software that runs on the desktop as well. With Google, Microsoft and Amazon providing cloud computing infrastructure, the start up costs for these services are extremely low.
It’s interesting that it’s taken this long for any version of the “thin client” approach to stick. Sun’s 90′s vision of thin Java clients was as prescient as it was premature.
As an aside, I’ve been evaluating the Droid as a development platform and while it’s a pretty great device, there are some strides that still need to be made with regards to user interface.
Nov 16th, 2009
Sara Niegowski
This post reminds me of the Pomegranate phone that made a big splash last year: http://www.pomegranatephone.com/. The Pomegranate has amazing features: GPS, web browser, projector, global voice translator, coffee brewer, shaver, and harmonica. Except it turns out that the wonder phone is just a spoof ad for Nova Scotia tourism (until you can get everything you want in one phone, you can get everything you want in one place!). The creators were trying to have fun and draw on our own slightly absurd expectations of what is possible in cell technology (folding knife and pliers?). What I find ironic, though, is that most of these features ARE available now. In fact, the ad creators probably couldn’t have thought of a crazier idea than the true development of cell phones doubling as microscopes. Yesterday on TV I saw Ashton Kutcher selling a camera phone that turns into a projector, and–when combined with an NPR news story this week about a new baby-cry translator iPhone ap–I realized the Nova Scotia folks better watch out. If my phone somehow starts brewing coffee, I guess I will never have to visit Nova Scotia.
In the spirit of the Pomegranate, I’ve come up with my own list of smart phone features that would really come in handy in my own life: foot warmer, ketchup dispenser, in-law GPS tracking system, food calorie scanner/identifier, mechanic BS meter, mascara applicator…
Nov 17th, 2009
lailakaz
In the Emerging Markets in Digital Media class, we have been reading about the many different and innovative ways in which people in the developing countries are using cell phones. From transferring money to getting answers to health-related queries via SMS to Farmers Friend to citizen journalism, the use goes well beyond voice calls. They are doing it all with the simple, cheap versions of the phones. To think what they could do with smartphones
The last reading I did had a case study on research underway to use cell phones to collect environmental data via sensors. The idea is appealing to researchers because the amount of data that could be collected this way (with millions of individual subscribers) is far beyond anything we currently have. However, there are ethical issues involved, such as the issue of individual privacy – tracking data through the cell phones about the environment means also tracking the subscribers’ whereabouts.
Nov 19th, 2009
*cat
It’s definitely an exciting time to be in the mobile phone industry. Lots of new hardware is coming out (even though the US is still way behind Europe and Asia countries) but still an exciting time nontheless. As the features, applications, and user experience become more robust and scalable — there’s really no reason why the cell phone wouldn’t outperform the laptop (though I would say it’s more like 3.5 years away).
I’m just waiting for the flexi-screen and keyboard attachable units so when I’m in class, I can type all my notes into my phone’s notepad system to go with my blackberry instead of watching my laptop burn a hole through the table.
Nov 24th, 2009
Mandym
I know personally I find myself checking my email, general i-news, and various other items via my iphone… avoiding spending all day and night on my lap top. I think this is a trend that many of us are joining. There is nothing like spending all day on a computer working and then the evening online. Smart phones are the bridge that keeps our communication rolling when we are not at our desks. I agree with the post above, if only we could get reliable service to go with our Swiss army knife of communication.
Dec 8th, 2009
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