If you did not just time travel from a decade ago to today’s time, I’m sure you know that smartphones have already taken over the planet. Ok, that was a bit dramatic but you know what I mean.

In the last decade, smartphones have gradually become our primary source of information, services and entertainment. Who would’ve thought in the 90s that a handheld device would be the future of computing.

Ever since their inception, smartphones have seen countless innovations leading to a great number of feats like tremendous increase in computing power, better displays, powerful cameras, enhanced security, coupled with software innovations.

However, now it seems like we have reached a plateau stage, where innovation has stalled in this area, leading some to question if other forms of computing will take over. While this might be true, the smartphone has lots more potential to bedazzle us.

1. Foldable Screens

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Smartphones with foldable screens are not too far away into the future. Almost all major tech companies are researching heavily on this technology so that our smartphones could become ever more useful.

Thanks to this technology, the smartphone has the potential to become the only device we will need in our lives as opposed to today where we have laptops, desktops, tablets, etc.

You would be able to fold such a device into a smartphone or unfold it to make it a larger device like a tablet. With advancements in display technology and miniaturisation, this would enable it to become the only computing device we will need.

That would be a real achievement. From the consumer’s point of view, that would mean no confusion over which handset to choose or buying and maintaining several devices which need to be replaced every few years.

2. Batteries That Last Long

Right now, the single biggest challenge for smartphones is maintaining battery life. Our smartphones are so powerful and we do so much stuff on them that they need to be recharged almost daily.

While other areas like displays, storage capacity, computing power, camera quality, etc have all skyrocketed, battery tech hasn’t really advanced that much over the years and it makes our smartphones look not so smart.

That will change however in the coming years as several innovations in this field are just waiting for mass production. In a not too distant future, our phones could easily last a week on a single charge.

Another very interesting innovation that will help here will be true wireless charging. Your phone will be able to charge from anywhere in your home, completely wireless, without you even noticing it, just like wi-fi.

3. Primarily Voice Controlled with AI

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Increasingly, the AI virtual assistant on our phones are become more intelligent. Now, we can accomplish several tasks just by speaking and can even automate a lot of stuff and they happen without us uttering a word.

This could very well be the future of computing. One where you could achieve any task just by speaking to your smartphone, making smartphones primarily voice controlled as opposed to primary touch based that we are used to now.

This doesn’t mean that we won’t stop tapping on our phones as some tasks will still require our manual input and operations on a screen but most of our tasks will be voice based in the future.

The recent introduction of Airpods by Apple is a very subtle push into that direction. We will need to steadily habituate ourselves to do tasks without even looking at our smartphones. One very prominent example is voice based, smart home control.