The Future Is Here, The World Is Ready To Move Beyond The Smartphone

We stand on the precipice of technological evolution, where the present was once the cutting edge, and the exciting swiftly becomes mundane. The smartphone, that beacon of innovation five years ago, now gathers dust in the corner of our collective consciousness, even as its foldable successors rise to prominence. Yet, we've seen this tale before. The late 90s hailed the mobile phone as the PC matured. PCs slimmed down, gained power, and the MacBook Air emerged in the late 2000s. But by 2007, it was yesterday's news. The iPhone, a trailblazer in the smartphone saga, left the likes of Nokia and BlackBerry in its wake. Even against the MacBook Air, the PC was a dull comparison. The concept of Tablet PCs remained elusive until Apple launched the iPad, causing an ill-advised surge in touchscreen laptops and unconventional form factors. The iPad, more iPhone than Mac, was cool. But the Windows-based tablets? They were simply PCs. Even the successful Microsoft Surface couldn't shake off its inherent PC identity, despite its undeniable utility.

My point? The modern smartphone has hit the same threshold that the PC faced from the late 90s to the early 2010s, the ultrabook era included. For the first time since the iPhone's 2007 debut, tech chatter isn't about the next phone on the horizon. The tail end of 2022 marked this seismic shift, with the ChatGPT boom in November. Microsoft threw down the gauntlet, integrating it into Bing and revolutionising search engine technology for the first time in two decades, sending shockwaves through Google. Predictably, Google countered last month with its chatbot, BARD, powered by generative AI and transformers. ChatGPT, in the meantime, has become the quickest application to reach a million users, and it did so without a native mobile app for most of its existence.

The impact of these generative AI models is palpable in our day-to-day lives. Scroll through Instagram and you'll see a plethora of images birthed by AI tools like Dall-E, MidJourney, and Stable Fusion. But what's the next game-changing hardware product? If ChatGPT and BARD are the successors of the search engine, what's the device of the future they'll call home?

Well, Star Trek's tricorder and Captain Kirk's communicator inspired the mobile phone. The series aired in the late 60s, with the first mobile phone arriving in 1973 courtesy of Motorola. Apple arguably continued this evolution with the first iPhone. The mixed reality headset concept has been teased for decades through films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek, Minority Report, Blade Runner, and Mission Impossible. The vision was clear: a headset that not only transports you to another dimension but also enriches your reality with digital objects. Google made a bold attempt with Google Glass, unveiled in 2012 by co-founder Sergey Brin, but it didn't quite land. Microsoft fared better with HoloLens in 2015, but it too hit a wall.

Fast-forward to now, and Apple has cracked the code. True to form, they weren't first, but the Vision Pro stands as the most advanced mixed reality headset of its kind. They've combined iPhone and Mac technology, supporting millions of iPhone apps and processing technology capable of handling its cutting-edge screen tech and sensors. In classic Apple style, they've reimagined the user interface — it's not a UI, but a human interface. The device's cameras and eye-tracking technology harness on-device AI to enable real-time navigation of the VisionOS screen with a gesture or a blink. Speech input completes the package.

Apple's Vision Pro is a glimpse into the future. It doesn't just resemble a gadget from a sci-fi film; it operates like one, according to the chorus of reviewers. They hail it as the best VR/AR headset they've ever tested. Its interface is so intuitive it feels like magic, instantly transporting users to another reality. Its killer apps are already here: its ability to double as a spatial audio-enabled home theatre setup, coupled with support for iPhone apps, is a game-changer. Add to that the custom experiences being crafted by Disney, Microsoft's productivity offerings, and compatibility with a Mac, and we're looking at a revolution.

Over time, the headset will follow the iPhone's trajectory. It'll become cheaper and more powerful. Its battery life, currently capped at 2 hours, will extend to around 5-6 hours within the next 5 years. It'll become smaller and more portable. Remember the first Motorola phone? It cost $4,000, around $11,000 in today's money, and was as large as a face. Economies of scale will ensure the $3,499 price tag of Vision Pro drops by at least 50%.

People are weary of the iPhone. They're weary of their computers. But after 15 years, we're witnessing a new dawn of software and hardware that isn't about Google Search and the iPhone. It's about generative AI and mixed reality. These technologies have been brewing for a while, but now we're seeing the first true consumer-centric applications. The future is here, and the world is ready to move beyond the smartphone.

Also Read: Zuckerberg unimpressed with Apple Vision Pro, evokes Steve Ballmer 'iPhone moment'