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Gods, how much longer until we all accept that phones have reached a local (if not global) maximum? There's really not much left to 'innovate'. More cameras, m

Gods, how much longer until we all accept that phones have reached a local (if not global) maximum? There's really not much left to 'innovate'. More cameras, more memory, bigger and bigger and bigger screens, less ports. The next innovation here is gonna have to be a total paradigm shift, and I'm not particularly convinced that Apple and/or Google are capable of that anymore. The only levers in their grasp left to pull are software. So now we are innundated with capital-F Features. And these Features are so important that users must be constantly bombarded with tips and popups and hints and notifications telling them about the latest Features. Google even calls their extremely normal and standard update cycle 'Feature Drop'. People just want to buy a phone that fits their preferred physical dimensions, lasts at least most of the day, and generally does what you tell it and stays the hell out of the way. Nobody, not one person on this planet wants their phone to swoop in an animated rainbow-bordered modal telling them that their calculator app now includes AI, for some reason, and that they now are compelled to accept some new terms and license for a calculator.

vlovich123 2y ago
I’m going to posit that the paradigm shift will cost significantly more money than it took to bring desktop OSes to mobile + make cap sense work and create a real smartphone market (ie in-lens display + maybe even a ChatGPT like AI to interact with or really good hand and eye tracking). So it’s hard to imagine that it won’t come from some very entrenched player because not only is this stuff super expensive to r&D, it’s super expensive to get the compute powerful enough and using low enough power and batteries big enough to do this stuff since Moore’s law ended a decade ago. It very well could be that smartphones are the last major HW computing revolution for a long time and you’ll only see incrementalism from entrenched players going forward barring significant unforeseen scientific and engineering breakthroughs.
pazimzadeh 2y ago
Maybe when there's an e-ink display on the back of the iPhone, or the main display can switch into an ultra low power mode Built-in 2D projector or hologram projector (eventually with input detection) Force Touch returns to the display but with actual tactile feedback Force Touch but in the hologram or projection Non-contact charging within range of a base station You can also imagine tons of security features for a device that you always have in your pocket

vlovich123 2y ago

I’m going to posit that the paradigm shift will cost significantly more money than it took to bring desktop OSes to mobile + make cap sense work and create a real smartphone market (ie in-lens display + maybe even a ChatGPT like AI to interact with or really good hand and eye tracking). So it’s hard to imagine that it won’t come from some very entrenched player because not only is this stuff super expensive to r&D, it’s super expensive to get the compute powerful enough and using low enough power and batteries big enough to do this stuff since Moore’s law ended a decade ago. It very well could be that smartphones are the last major HW computing revolution for a long time and you’ll only see incrementalism from entrenched players going forward barring significant unforeseen scientific and engineering breakthroughs.

pazimzadeh 2y ago

Maybe when there's an e-ink display on the back of the iPhone, or the main display can switch into an ultra low power mode Built-in 2D projector or hologram projector (eventually with input detection) Force Touch returns to the display but with actual tactile feedback Force Touch but in the hologram or projection Non-contact charging within range of a base station You can also imagine tons of security features for a device that you always have in your pocket