What Comes After Smartphones? | Hacker News Reader

What Comes After Smartphones?

ben-evans.com

41 pointschemodax40 comments

The article correctly goes through the history of personal computing but then just stops short of reaching the obvious conclusion: everyone pretty much has a 'personal computer' already (even feature phones count, kinda). There's no "next platform". PC technology spread is done. As with other technologies, the next waves will be about efficiency, price and (as TFA does say) changing the way we work and live around PCs/smartphones.

Consider previous technologies: planes went from the Wright Flyer to the 747 in 50 years or so. But there's little "next gen" for airliners after the 747, other than well, fuel efficiency, operational efficiency, safety, etc. Which made riding in one a lot more approachable to anyone and eventually made low cost carriers possible and world tourism and Instagram influencers, etc... But a modern jet engine would be recognizable tech to an engineer from 50 years ago.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. But it's no longer a gold rush, it will be an evolution-driven industry just like, well, everything else.

The comparison to airlines is really insightful.

I wonder if we could have a comparable article written in the 1960s wondering what the next revolution in transportation technology would be. Trains, cars, planes, next is hover cars? Space craft? With this example we have the benefit of hindsight and understand there isn't a new "automobile" right over the horizon.

That is a dangerous way to look at it, because you risk missing the next big transportation device because it doesn't look like what you expect it to look like. What if the next thing you use to transport yourself to work is not a hovercar but Zoom (the online meeting app)?

Your list went from most efficient to least efficient, and finally to "my g-d, could we possibly burn any more resources just to get where we're going?". Meaning it went the wrong way. Which, because it's the 60s in the hypothetical example, is fitting. The next revolution is the quantum of transportation: the electric scooter. I jest, but only a little. It gets me to work just fine, gets me there in only five minutes more than the car, and I don't have to pedal. And I can power it with the 400W of solar panels on the roof of our RV. Seeing how fast one can dump fuel into an engine in 2020 isn't what I'd call a "revolution".

Space ships aren't necessarily less efficient than airplanes for intercontinental travel. Yes, they burn an incredible amount of fuel for a couple minutes, but then they can travel through space without using any fuel because there is no atmospheric drag. So in the end the fuel usage is comparable.

Space ships also have the advantage that they can use "green" fuel, fuel that is synthesized from green energy, water and atmospheric CO2 rather than using fossil fuels. (Jet planes could also run on green fuel, but jet fuel is significantly more expensive to synthesize than hydrogen or methane).

Methane and hydrogen rockets also burn much cleaner than jets. The fuel is almost pure, and the oxidizer is pure oxygen rather than air, so there is almost no sulfates, NOx or soot.

Still pretty inefficient compared to an electric scooter, though. :)

Red ocean not a blue ocean.

http://www.corporatestrategy.com/red-ocean-vs-blue-ocean/

>but then just stops short of reaching the obvious conclusion, Everyone pretty much has a 'personal computer' already......

I think he said / describe it as below;

but well over 4bn people have a smartphone today and there are only 5.7bn adults on earth. We can’t unlock a radically bigger market on that axis - we’ve run out of people.

For context, the Author ( BE ) was AFAIK the first person to put numbers together and reach that conclusion long time ago. The recent one in 2019 is here [1], the platform war in 2016 [2] and his twitter mentioning it go as far back to 2014 or earlier. And arguably his work on Mobile Phone analysis started in the early days of 3G, before the whole Smartphone revolution.

> As with other technologies, the next waves will be about efficiency, price and

Which is part of the reason why Apple is pushing for Services Revenue. Strategically speaking it was definitely the right move, some of its execution though, leave a lot to be desired. ( Apple TV+, Apple Arcade.... )

[1] https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/5/28/the-end-of...

[2] https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2016/7/25/platform-w...

One thing that could change around how we use and live around smartphones would be voice interface. Voice recognition is getting better, but NLP/AI still leaves a lot to be desired, and people are less inclined to use it in public. I firmly believe the next step would be subvocal recognition, so you can issue commands without vocalizing them. Short of intrusive surgery, I think the best way to achieve this is a reader that reads neural signals going to your vocal cords. And the advent of this tech could result in the creation of a new class of device - something you attach to your jawbone, or wear around your neck.

with the way things are today there is no way i would get a permanent implant. it would have to be all open source at least. and maybe have some sort of switch on the outside like the librem 5 where you could physically disconnect it from working

If it's the only way to compete in the world, one may have no other practical choice.

iBorg :-)

> planes went from the Wright Flyer to the 747 in 50 years or so

Boeing first flew the Dash 80 (the 707 prototype) in 1954, with the first commercial service in 1958.

The 747 program started in 1965. The age of jet transport went really fast!

> But there's little "next gen" for airliners after the 747

There nearly was, with spaceplane projects such as HOTOL and NASP entirely within the technical potential of the 1990s. But the industry pushed for slow, efficient mass traffic instead.

So instead of Mach 25 through low orbit we have Mach 0.76 at 41,000ft. But oh such cheap stag weekends to Prague.

It still might come: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0

> There's no "next platform"

I beg to differ. Its sort of like watching old scifi movies and people go into the "future"... where there are no cellphones.

Just off the top of my head:

- ar and vr are not really solved

- look at ctrl labs (bought by facebook, unfortunately) where they can decode neural impulses in your forearm with a wristband

- look at Elon Musk's Neuralink where direct brain i/o is being developed

I think the next step in evolution will be when we lose the notion of smart devices and local data, and just think in terms of screens and input devices. The closest thing we have right now is Google's Stadia: your games run in the cloud. You can use your TV (with the help of Chromecast) as a screen and you have a smart WiFi-controller that can also connect to Stadia, and together you have an experience. Or you use your smart phone and its touchscreen, and get the same content. I think this will be the model of the future experience. However, the screen content needs to adapt to the screen size and type, and to the input devices that are available. Stadia can't really do this yet. And it should even work with audio-only devices like Echos and Nest speakers.

You will certainly still have a phone in your pocket, but you can treat it more like a portable screen with touchscreen for input. There will be no "apps on your phone" or "data on your phone", but your phone provides that for you, just like all devices give you access to them. The big question will be where the code runs. I wouldn't count on a complete cloud solution like Stadia, because you can't guarantee a permanent network connection on your phone. My guess would be that the data and code will be synced with the cloud, but code can still run on those devices that are powerful enough. For all others, it runs in the cloud.

I also think that the app model will sooner or later cease to exist, because it limits what an AI can do. If you have separate apps for spreadsheets and music, the AI can't complete a seemingly trivial task like 'take the list of songs in that spreadsheet and play them'. There will be something more like recipe, to explain the AI how to read a spreadsheet and how to find and play a particular song on a music service, but all the logic that is now hidden in apps must be available to an AI to allow it to combine it.

or https://safenetwork.tech

everything stored and running on the network (which will be made up of the unused storage and cpu cycles on peoples devices, and maybe some servers as well) so your devices will mainly just be a portal or a window to the network

The model is simply “computing”. After smartphones we have smart watches (the continual minimization of mobile computing) and ar/vr (immersive computing).

The main driver has always been mobility and minaturization. From mainframes, desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Also we had ethernet to wifi and cellular.

Kevin Kelly had a great talk about screens being pervasive almost a decade ago. The leap from bulky crt to flatscreen resulted in an increasing number of displays to display all the data we’re receiving. Not only that, but because the displays have become bigger there is more data to be displayed. Ar/Vr seems like the next thing since the screen is (paradoxically) even larger!

IoT is interesting because it is a new form of computing (let me know if you think otherwise) as it’s not necessarily meant directly for human-computer interaction, instead it’s machine-machine computing.

Voice is another interesting aspect since this type of computing does not utilize the traditional screen.

Apple’s upcoming smart glasses seem like the next logical step (minaturization of mobile computing with an expanding immersive display)

Personal area networking is certain to be a thing.

Phones can’t get much bigger, but we want more real estate for interfacing. The glasses certainly have the most long term potential, but imagine the phone becoming more about wireless radio and less time in hand. The watch loses some functionality to become smaller and have longer battery life. Maybe you move heart rate or blood sugar monitoring to a separate device, like a ring, and people can cherry pick which ones they like.

Or the phone merges into the watch and goes away entirely, some of it into the band. Apple had a patent on incorporating batteries into the watch band, but they never did anything with that. Pity.

if somebody could deliver some actual decent battery improvements instead of just making promises it would help most of what you mentioned.

I've never really got into the iot thing (apart from two smart bulbs) because of how many batteries you would go through in a year if you had a house full of iot devices. its crazy to think of everyone going through the same amount of batteries each year, especially those coin cell ones that can't be recycled

I think optical waveguide is really interesting for AR (and maybe VR?)

And actually there are some ways that could start to replace laptops and desktops as well as phones.

Also wondering when there is going to be a real competitor for Neuralink. Or if it's just up to Elon to prove everything first.

Another crazy idea might be something you wear on your head that has a microprojector.

Or we just start wallpapering every room with OLED screens so your work follows you as you move around.

I think AI has a ton of potential as far as realizing the dream of the personal assistant.

I still think smart-glasses has a chance to come back. If you think about it, combined with AR and hand-tracking, they can make everything that has a screen obsolete.

Your smart-glass will replace your TV, Laptop, Console, Watch, Camera, and of course Phone.

I think the biggest blocker is battery life. What is the minimum display resolution I’d need in submerging like steam vr but wired power where I can do basic web development like with an ide open, a browser and it’s inspect window all open? Traditionally this is the 1080p monitors. What would be the equivalent in vr?

Maybe not replace, but at least displace the phone, watch, camera. I think one of the major hurdles with smart-glasses isn't tech, it's the changing of social norms. Right now, if you walk down the street waving your hands in the air, you'll look like a crazy person.

When people first started using cellphones, from the outside, it didn't look much different than looking down at a book or portable gaming device.

But bluetooth earpieces made it look like people were talking to themselves. For me, if I'm not by myself, I'll often have my phone in my hand while talking on bluetooth.

That's incorrect, when people were first using mobile phones they did look like crazy people, because people were used to phones being stationary. Waving your hands in the air without a physical input device present would just be the same shift.

> Your smart glass will replace your TV, Laptop, Console, Watch, Camera, and of course Phone.

and ... yourself. By capturing all your input-output signals over your lifetime it can upload your personality so your digital self becomes immortal. Of course, smart glasses will be only part of your digital self logging.

Broadly agree but just to highlight one vital point which is not mentioned - each new platform has been enabled by the progression of Moore's law which has radically changed what is possible in a form factor / power budget / price budget.

Implicitly, I think, Ben assumes that Moore's law is slowing or coming to a halt. That's probably the case but I think that the honest answer on the question that Ben asks is that we don't know until we know how Moore's law will pan out over the next 10 years or so.

Every iteration under Moore laws gets costlier (roughly by 1 order of magnitude costly than the previous iteration, iirc). So sooner of later, well run out of money evn if theoretical potential remains to be exploited.

And current status of research in physics doesn't give me hope that some affordable breakthrough is coming soon.

Prognosticators predict that advances in technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and wearable electronics will spawn a new generation of devices that could change our everyday existence even more than the smartphone did.

They are right. Because it has never been about the compute. It has been about the interface.

Next-generation platforms that are wireless like the smart glasses will be limited by battery life. However, wireless charging will solve that. It will displace some computing like the mobile phone etc... But that is a long way away and there will be many failed initiatives till it becomes mass market.

Edward Thorp had built a wearable computer in the early 1960s to beat the dealer in casinos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_O._Thorp

I guess the ring displayed in the movie Zardoz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4EESnKyRIY

Payments.

Seriously. Banking by smartphone between other people with smartphones.

  += gigs
  += reputation
  += search (matching gigs to available workers)

More smartphones. As tech matures the ability to move it to new phases gets harder. We'll always have computers we type on because people hate talking to machines. Smart phones are intercommunication devices to keep us connected. They're good enough so won't be moved by other kinds of tech. They are post avant garde period so they will be entrenched.

Chat bots with emotion and personality, like the movie Her, acting as companions. I bet Xiaoice isn't as sophisticated as GPT-3 but in a short time it will be.

> The AI Girlfriend Seducing China’s Lonely Men

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25418366

I'd like to think that what's happening in the US will wake everyone up to how smartphones are abused to expose people to submarine PR.

Maybe more free computing like the pinephone will be what's next.

Maybe something like blockchain technology, if(!) it manages to eliminate intermediaries in some industries and make the previously computing model obsolete for some kinds of computation and industries.

Cloud computing and brain-computer interfaces.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com