“Ten years ago this month, Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld to announce the iPhone. Under his second tenure at Apple, the company had already managed the twin masterstrokes of reimagining consumer hardware design and reinventing the music industry,” Evan Dashevsky writes for PC Magazine. “This new undertaking, however, would prove transformative.”
“The first-generation iPhone introduced the masses to the concept of computing everywhere. Following that breakthrough, the Internet would join people at the dinner table, while walking the dog, in line at the post office, while watching TV, while running for the presidency, and in the bathroom,” Dashevsky writes. “If a time traveler from the mid-90s arrived in 2010, they’d find themselves in an era where no bit of knowable information — or social contact — was out of reach; the hive-intelligence was always present.”
“Fast forward to 2017, and it feels almost quaint that we are still accessing our virtual world through palm-sized rectangles,” Dashevsky writes. “I hope I’m not coming off as too #FirstWorldProblem precious here, but in a world surrounded by silky smooth automation, using a smartphone to complete basic tasks is beginning to feel clunky and garish.”
“In the show Black Mirror, computer interfaces are implanted in users’ eyeballs, thus obliterating the barrier between Man and Matrix,” Dashevsky writes. “We’re probably still a ways off from that (though people are trying!), but shrinking this tech to something the size of a pair of glasses is a real possibility. It’s just a matter of when.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The iPhone, and its innumerable knockoff leeches, has many years ahead as the primary means of computing everywhere. What supplants it will quite likely be something less obtrusive or, in the case of eyewear + personal assistant (AI glasses), something regarded as less obtrusive (easier and quicker to use regardless of the drawbacks of wearing glasses).
Removing obstacles between the human brain and the Internet is the goal.
What a moron. Um, yeah, buddy, the device is obsolete, next year no-one will have phones. They will all have Google glasses…or smart belt buckles. If you say it’s obsolete, please let us know what is gonna replace it..
WTF is “garish” about a smartphone?
“obtrusively bright and showy; lurid.”
No, the smartphone will be around for years. It will evolve and becoming more powerful and useful over the next decade. Other devices like tablets will also become more efficient and blur the lines between phone and PC.
Eventually yes we may have interactive contact lenses but that is a long way off yet.
Next headline and article from this moron:
“Are automobiles, buses, airplanes, and trains already obsolete? After all, in “Star Trek” teletransportation is de rigueur throughout the known universe. How gauche is linear object displacement compared to the grace and efficiency of beaming from one point to another?”
Puh-leeze.
A load of Bollocks, but then again with the inauguration only 6 days away, sign of the times!!
And after the inauguration we’ll finally have a leader who has the balls along with the ability to actually lead a country unlike Curious George and his mate Moms Mabely.
“Having balls?”
It’s too bad his balls are stuck between his ears. 🙁
/s
And yours are … well, nothing happening there, since I’m sure what little you had shriveled up with age.
Did a really nasty race-based slur really get an even number of positive and negatives ratings from 31 different MDN readers, or was this bot-based ratings inflation?
Libtard detected
Far from obsolete, unless there is a Chips implanted in our bodies then yes smartphone is obsoleted. Does that answer to the author question?.
9to5 proposed an Echo survey yesterday and 25% said Apple should sell an Echo device, 25% said Apple should incorporate Echo features into an Apple TV like device and 50% said Apple should just make Siri smarter. I was is the 50% camp until last night.
Last night I was watching a social media celebrity’s live stream. He just got an Echo and was asking the voice assistant known as Alexa questions. With the help of 900 people watching the live stream, the questions asked and Alexa’s answers were hilarious. Alexa didn’t have all the answers, but it seems smarter than Siri. For example, one of the questions asked was, “How are babies made?” Alexa answered, “That’s something a father or mother should answer.” This is a surprisingly witty reponse. I just asked Siri the same question and Siri rephrased the question to “Where do babies come from?” This is a completely different question.
The other thing I noticed is the Echo is more of a group device compared to the iPhone, Apple Watch, etc. This means the Echo is a tool used for different situations.
Overtime, people will interact with Echo type devices more and more. Other people will use different smart devices like Apple Watches. Smart glasses will be additional tools used. And smartphones will still be used for situations like playing certain games or writing essays, etc. The question shouldn’t be is the iPhone obsolete, but rather is this the beginning of a multi smart device age?
Siri is an idiot, that causes a lot of frustration and wasted time. It’s kind of Apple-unexusable. Hey, but Apple is leader in market cap and the stock hit a new 1-yr high. All’s well.
Yep as always lately Apple is late to the game there just off there Mark anymore. The Jobs era Apple is definitely gone
MDN noted “Removing obstacles between the human brain and the Internet is the goal.”
I respectfully disagree. Devices enabling a person to achieve their goals more easily is the goal. The Internet is a source of existing knowledge, but creative goals demand coming up with new solutions, those not in the “internet.”
Devices need to help with creativity.
. . . or something
No offense, but the iPhone was a knock off of the Sony P800 and P900.
Having had both… you’re nuts. They were nothing like the original iPhone.
“Removing obstacles between the human brain and the Internet is the goal.” — Removing reality from humanity is the goal.
In “The Black Mirror” all of the tech is foreseeable, and just “a few minutes ahead,” but at the same time, most people still have smartphones. Much more capable smartphones.
There is nothing obsolete about the smartphone except its expense.
Another illuminati fu**tard who think he is original by mentionning obsolete.
Ya, next year we’re all with glasses.
Dashevsky, your article and style are lame… Stay in school!
Glasses will be a tricky proposition. Getting people who don’t need them to wear them is one step, another is they cost of adding the tech to multiple pairs of glasses (which people do have) is another. Having enough variations of frame styles is another, people want choice when it comes to something they’re going to have on their face. Unless the tech can be cheaply added to all sorts of frames (unlikely) will people all want to have the same thing on their face?
“…clunky and garish.” A good description for the far too intrusive attempts by Siri to turn itself on.
“The Singularity” is IMHO a new nightmare humanity is attempting to inflict upon itself. It’s the new opium den.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
Meanwhile, there’s the real world of miracle planet Earth, our only home. The more we separate ourselves from it, the more lost and self-destructive we become. That’s not a good thing.
Technology is a tool. It’s not life. Keep it that way.