The End Of The Smartphone Is Near

The smartphone is just over 15 years old, and 70% of people on the planet own one. But there’s reason to believe their days are numbered. Where do smartphones go from here? And what new technologies might take its place? There are a couple of directions this could go. From mixed reality headsets and glasses to AI assistants, the smartphone as we know it is about to change.

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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - We've Reached Peak Smartphone
2:24 - The End of the Smartphone
4:49 - Where Do We Go From Here?
7:17 - Deeper Into The Immersion
12:05 - AI Pin
17:58 - Joe Contradicts The Entire Point Of His Video
19:10 - Sponsor - Henson Shaving

[theCodyReeder]

Watching this with 5% battery. Yes the end is indeed near.

[nickbenton]

Not being able to sell a new thousand dollar chunk of plastic and metal to everyone every three years would truly be disastrous. Let’s hope they get it sorted out!

[mskellyrlv]

Three years ago, I signed up as a beta tester for a major company's super-advanced smart phone, which was indeed the transparent phone prophesied in so many TV shows. I got it out of the box, and was really wowed by it for several hours. Then I put it down to go get something to eat. I haven't been able to find it since....

[DanielPennybaker]

Just because a product has matured doesn’t mean it’s getting replaced. Literally: refrigerator, microwave, cars, etc.

[charlesflohr]

It still terrifies me having an AI on all the time under control of a huge multinational corporation with zero oversight listening in on my conversations and recording my privacy. I turn off the digital assistant features for that reason, and Alexa is never allowed in my house.

I just don’t trust these companies.

[tishw]

My mom worked for Motorola in the 60's, processing microchips.
One day, on her lunch break, she and her coworkers asked their manager exactly what they were making and why?
He asked them to imagine being able to carry your phone with you anywhere in the world and calling anyone you want at any time.
The response was "pfft" and lots of laughter. Move forward to early 80's. My mom purchased our first home desktop and when affordable our cellular phones.

[acarrillo]

SciFi makes hand held devices transparent for story telling reasons. It widens possible camera angles for a given shot of an actor while including what they are looking at. I have strong doubts that transparent screens will ever be the mainstream save for use in smart glasses.

[jaybee]

switched from an iPhone to a old school flip phone.. no feeds to scroll. just shitty text messaging and phone calls .. life never been better!

[AaronTheHarris]

We've hit the stage where the smartphone becomes an appliance. The look of a refrigerator, microwave, toaster has varied over the years but for the past 40 years they've essentially looked and run the same. That doesn't mean smartphones are going away, just that it's kinda silly to release a new model every year (technically appliance makers like samsung and LG do the same, but even then the year-to-year changes are minimal).

[devluz]

I started studying computer science in Germany in 2006. In one of our projects we created a futuristic prototype how someone can order food with an app on their phone... The average computer science student could already see very well where things were going. The pushback was extreme though. Everyone was like "But no one would want to use this. You actually want to talk with the person on the checkout"

[mojojojo]

Just noticed now? Tech has stopped evolving in around 2010. We have the same phones, same PCs, same tablets, same everything then 14 years ago.

[a.p.]

Thing is, I 100% don't want a lapel pin that sits there and observes my surroundings and tells me to eat a candy bar. I also don't want to have to talk to my phone to get it to do stuff. Can you imagine how irritating being in a room full of people trying to text with those stupid things would be?

[RhianKristen]

I would love to see more privacy laws put in place. I imagine these designs would be much less dystopian if companies had to take everyone’s privacy into consideration. I hate cameras and always on cameras are hella creepy - like a stalker - always there, always watching.

[greasee.monkey]

After working at a pawn shop that had a reality TV show filmed there, people definitely act differently when there is a camera pointed at them. This new tech would take that type of filming to a whole new and weird level.

[amalgeorge]

I actually feel that maybe phones are somehow the preferred design. I maybe wrong but I don't think they're going away anytime soon.

[sifridbassoon]

I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the smart phone world. Yes, I am old. But my entire career was in software development, and after I retired I was determined to only check my email once a day. No more checking voice messages every hour. Now I also check my phone once a day. And my friends and family hate me for it.

On the other hand, I manage to read through a couple of books a week. 😁

[MrRabidtroll]

The credit for this device ought to go to the writers of Star Trek the Next Generation. The Star Fleet badge is a communicator that translates languages and allows for instant communication among the crew members.

[jamiemonkey]

Watching this nearly a year later. Its amazing to see how tech has changed and how wrong the predictions in this video were.

[chaosSpectre]

Never really thought about the whole "camera on every person" scenario that much before, but when you mentioned that people act differently in front of a camera it reminded me very much of Autism Masking. As I've learned how to understand what masking is and how to be a more authentic person to myself and loved ones, I've realized just how exhausting it is to mask and how much I dislike being someone I'm not, which for me results in the opposite effect of wanting to socialize because I don't want to have to seem "acceptable" in as many categories as possible every time I interact with someone.

My professional mask isn't as exhausting as it was before, and I think thats because I tend to keep my professional life distant from my personal life, but also that professional mask does just fine by being positive, kind, and upbeat, at least when I can be. This experience makes me think that overall, a camera on every person scenario will most likely result in massive social shifts as we try to figure out how to live like this as a species, or a mass amount of rejection to this current format until a discreet format becomes more available. The discreet option, however, is pretty close to the idea of just cybernetics, which tech already has made a few breakthroughs in contact lenses being able to act similar to these AR options. At some point, someone could just pop in contacts and now their eyes are cameras, and that will very much impact the way we as a species interact.

The future is kinda concerning, but idk, maybe this will push us to be less shitty to each other over time, and more empathetic, when you know that the world itself is possibly watching. Likewise, the amount of paranoia this will cause will probably require an entire field of therapy appearing to help cope.

[johnchedsey]

It occurred to me while watching this that I might finally be aging out of some of these major tech advancements. My phone provides music in the car, navigation, access to information and something to take 10, 334, 432 photos of my cats. I just can't imagine adopting something new technology now that I'm over 50. Totally fine with others being excited, but I think I'm generally satisfied with where I'm at.