Combining a personal computer and a mobile operating system, smartphones have, rightfully so, become apart of everyday life for the average consumer. The introduction of new smartphone features have also dominated technology conversations year after year. From novel ways to unlock your phone using a fingerprint scanner or even using an Iris scanner that reads patterns from your eyes, to dual camera cameras that promise clearer pictures by adding more light, smartphones have come a long way since the early 2000s. But the technological advancements for the pocket-sized powerhouse do not stop here, increased focus on user interface and virtual assistance are paving a new future for smartphones.
Research shows that there will be a rise in the use of augmented reality in phones. Augmented reality, or AR, is a novel approach to making a user's smartphone more seamless with the world around them by combining virtual reality and real reality. By introducing virtual objects into a screen that overlays the real world, AR can close the gap between the smartphone screen and the eyes, potentially making calls, messaging and entertainment directly available to the user's gaze by pointing a phone's camera to an external object. Beyond pointing a phone to the world, the smartphone may very well become simply a clear piece of glass.
These features alone, are the reason why Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) chief inventor Alex Kipman has stated that augmented reality will eventually replace anything with a screen. A few examples of the growing focus on augmented reality is the internationally known game Pokemon Go, the famous Snapchat (NYSE: SNAP) lenses that overlay features on the external world, or Google's (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Tango, a new AR platform that allows 3D mapping, indoor navigation and recognition of the environment surrounding the user.
Another improvement will be artificial intelligence for smartphones. The future for artificial intelligence-driven smartphones now lies in the virtual assistance interfaces such as Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) Siri and Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Alexa. The AI system allows these systems to get "smarter" with improved speech recognition and understanding of complex information. In doing so, artifical intelligence may allow smartphones to intercept the senses and anticipate human actions by closing the gap between sight and hearing with technology. While voice assistants may not understand every mode of speech, the future may see artificial intelligence systems combined with third-party apps to enhance the consumer's use of their phone, even potentially allowing users to have full-fledged conversations with their devices.
While artificial intelligence and augmented reality boast a closer connection with technology and the user's outside world, smartphones may also see a rise in fully flexible displays in the next 5 years. With the rise in the use of the OLED, a screen that is lighter and thinner than the LED, smartphones have been able to quite literally, bend to the will of its user, as seen with the Samsung Galaxy S8's ultra-flexible display that allows users to bend their phones, OLED screens are being used by smartphone manufacturers to create foldable screens. While today's use of bendable phones will break with enough pressure, batteries and processors may become bendable enough for the smartphone to completely fold into a smaller device.
Given the futuristic goals of technology companies left and right, from making the virtual world more real and allowing phones to have a smarter brain of their own, consumers appear to only want a few things: a better battery and camera. According to a recent report from the Strategy Analytics' Consumer Sentiment Analysis, longer-lasting batteries and clearer photos have been central to consumer satisfaction. In a survey that tracked the reviews of the most known smartphones such as the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy, mentioned the camera as the most important feature, making up 20% of Galaxy reviews and 17% of iPhone reviews. Likewise, positive reviews of the battery was mentioned with 20% of Samsung reviews, and 10% of iPhone 7 reviews.
While the smartphone has a long future ahead of it, it's apparent that consumers may just want the simple things. Nevertheless, the future that smartphones hold is promising, and can change both the virtual and real landscape of technology forever.