The current smartphone market is dominated by Google’s Android OS with Apple claiming a notable niche on the market. Android’s market majority is increasing and has already achieved greater international success outside the US. With hundreds of different phones to choose from the average consumer could never fully grasp the scale of smartphones today. Smartphone technology is veering towards a hands-free user customized future.
Today we can pay our bills with a smartphone, flip the channel with a smartphone, and even lock our doors with a smartphone. What is the next step? With trends towards a hands free wearable technology like Google Glass and Apple Watch the future may be towards an augmented reality. Consider the fact the Google Glass allows users to capture and record videos in live 720p. The user just points their head at an object of focus and can record or snap photos
The Google Glass still has a major flaw: it’s just too cumbersome to justify adoption by the average person. Voice control of Google Glass must be fully integrated; it shouldn’t require a gesture from the user to activate it. A way to possibly remedy these quality of life issues are personalized software assistants like Siri will become full featured into the mobile operating system. These give personalized responses and feedback to the user to be personally accurate for the user if he or she for example searches for subjects on Google.
Other mobile device challenges include device fragmentation. It’s a major problem with Android OS where different versions of the Android devices exist simulataneously causing compatibility issues. This would be exacberated with different mobile devices that run fundamentally different operating systems. Even worse, the early versions of Google Glass could be quickly outdated by rapidly advancing technology. This would make consumers wary of sending expensive software and hardware which could quickly cause a bubble to pop as companies invest huge amounts of resources into products that do not sell.
Even with challenges facing a broader spectrum of mobile devices there still is huge potential. These new smartphone technology will evolve to more hands free devices that could change how we view reality through augmentations.