Talking about the retirement of the indispensable device in our daily lives is no longer a taboo or an occurrence. Because the golden age of the smartphone may have come to an end. To understand it, we must review some key dates that will be explained below.
Year 1975. Kodak, the world leader in photographic film, is the first company in the world to develop digital photography. He senses that the potential of the invention is enormous, but the company decides to shelve it and leave it in a drawer for later: this innovation could end its business. (And it will).
Year 2007. Apple launches the iPhone. It becomes an immediate and disruptive success, changing the telephone market forever. It is estimated that more than 2.3 billion units have been sold to date in fifteen years. More than anyone. Nokia, the then world leader, would fall from grace and sell its business to Microsoft seven years later.
Year 2018. A Spanish Google engineer in Silicon Valley comments, in passing, to this newspaper: “I know what sounds absurd but if you think about it, the smartphone doesn't make much sense. It's like when we used to take the radio cassette out of the car to carry it in our hands down the street. It's a brick, a hindrance. In the future I don't think it will continue to exist.”
Year 2022. Pekka Lundmark, CEO of Nokia (which today is dedicated to telecommunications networks), declares: “By 2030 the smartphone, as we know it, will not be the most common interface. Many other objects will be integrated directly into our body” (last February, Elon Musk's Neuralink successfully implanted its first chip in a patient).
Year 2024. Global sales of smartphones have already been in decline for six years, excluding the post-pandemic year. And this despite the fact that average prices, with the appearance of Chinese brands, have fallen by 6% since 2021. More than half of the world's population has one and the penetration rate exceeds 80% in many countries. Not only is the market mature, but the innovations of recent years are increasingly less impactful: a more powerful camera, greater capacity, more precise definition. But they are a few differentiating elements, for prices that in the high range easily exceed 1,000 euros and as the useful life of the device lengthens, renewal is delayed. According to data from several consulting firms, the same number of cell phones are sold today as in 2015. And most of the new ones are for replacing devices in the premium range.
From here, the dates for the next few years remain to be written. But, from smart glasses that will guide us through traffic, to bracelets or the smart ring that will provide us with data about our health in real time, to a headset that will be a vocal and musical advisor, the future is already here.
And without the cell phone. Between 2018 and 2022, sales of smart watches have grown by 68%, sales of clothing with digital accessories by 26% and interactive headphones by 33% (in comparison, phones have fallen by 10% in this period).
Some example of these changes. AI Pin, from the company Humane, as its name suggests, is a pin that is worn on top of clothing. It allows you to do without the smartphone by projecting information directly into the palm of your hand after a voice consultation managed by AI. Another option: the Rabbit R1. It is the tiny size of a matchbox. Ultimately, it is still a command to activate artificial intelligence, so that it does everything. “It is something more intuitive and more fun than a telephone,” say its creators.
And do you remember the legendary Jonathan Ive, the historic designer of the first iPhone? Together with Open AI (the chatGPT company) it is exploring, with the financial support of Masayoshi Son, the top executive of Softbank, the possibility of developing a device that incorporates generative AI into a new device that, according to rumors, could potentially replace current smartphones.
To all this we must add that the current giants in the sector are already investing in alternative devices to the telephone: Apple and Meta are betting on glasses. Tomorrow who knows.
“Until now, to travel you have to consult offers on pages, plan your trip thanks to data, download applications, carry out an economic transaction. But soon you will simply give the command through artificial intelligence, which will put together the entire package for you. And if on top of that you do this operation with an easy-to-carry techno-accessory, the consumer will not hesitate to buy the experience,” says computer engineer and digital ethnographer Josep Maria Ganyet.
The problem is that – let's go back to the example of Kodak, which left its digital photo invention in a drawer – these innovations that are already advanced run the risk of sinking the existing business model. “We are on the verge of a revolution in the technological business model. Until now, much of this happens through Apps or visits to a website. But with artificial intelligence and the spread of wearables it will change completely,” warns Ganyet. Hence the uncertainty, which means that the transition phase towards replacing the smart phone with other devices may be longer than expected, since the entire economic circuit would have to be rethought.
In fact, there is still some room for the smartphone to grow: from foldable devices, to wireless charging and even integration with other smart devices or home appliances, this reviled brick still has some room left to evolve.
“Yes, the growth of the smartphone market is fading, but the number of smartphones and active users around the world continues to increase. AI, wearables and voice and gesture controls are great advances, but I don't think they are the beginning of the end,” explains Jack Leathem, from the consulting firm Canalys. “Wearable devices, such as smartwatches, are linked to a connected smartphone and will continue to use the smartphone as a central control point for the foreseeable future. These compact devices do not have the computing power to complete the multiple complex tasks that smartphones perform,” warns this expert, who emphasizes that it will be difficult for the consumer to give up the touch screen so easily. “I can foresee the end of the smartphone era and the entry into a landscape of more portable devices that are controlled by voice or gestures, but that is still quite far away. “Generative AI is also being incorporated into smartphones at high speed with machine learning for numerous productive and creative use cases,” he says.
“These technological changes tend to be slow, almost generational,” agrees Enrique Dans, professor of innovation at IE Business School. “We will see coexistence between several devices for a while. What is certain is that with the innovation of artificial intelligence, these devices in clothing will absorb functions that are now on mobile phones and will redirect the usual route of web and app traffic, which will have an impact on the business of online advertising,” he adds. In his opinion, this evolution “will redirect the current commercial digital strategy, perceived as very aggressive, annoying and against user privacy.”
Year 2025-2030. If it is true that theater, radio and television have not disappeared with the arrival of the Internet and have been updated, however, the cassette, the iPod, the Walkman and the VHS have. On which side of the history of innovation will the smartphone fall?
