Alex Kipman, the inventor of Microsoft’s HoloLens belives that smartphones are yesterday’s news and mix reality gadgets are the future. He asserts that the smartphone is already dead and people haven’t just realized it yet.
Keep in mind that, these words are coming from a person who’s own company is thrown out of smartphone business. Besides smartphone industry is expected to ship 1.5 billion devices this year with a major focus on emerging markets.
His statement seems improbable for now, but it is true that smartphones will die one day and new technologies will take its place.
However, there are going to be some significant steps that lead us there, this shift will probably take decades to perfect. The wearables today are so bulky and doesn’t do much without connecting a smart device like a smartphone with them.
So if Microsoft is thinking about replacing iPhone with their bulky HoloLens setup, they are again at fault. The smartphones are here to stay for a decade or so and their manufacturers will make billions in profit by selling the same phones each year.
AR and Hybrid Devices are not Consumer Ready:
The augmented reality shows real promise, but until the manufacturers are able to make them “smart”, people are not going to throw away their phones. If a gadget looks cool and futuristic it doesn’t mean that people are ready to adapt it. Microsoft has a long way to perfect their technology, before making any kind of assumptions.
Source: Bloomberg
