Will netbooks eat into the market for smartphones?
That is, will devices that look like shrunk down laptops reduce the size of the market for devices that look like advanced mobile phones?
The question is easy to understand. That’s why there’s been lots of debate about it.
However, at Symbian, we see this question as way too limiting. The question presupposes that the successful mobile devices of tomorrow will have similar form factors to devices we know today.
Instead, we expect that the world will become used to very different form factors and usage models.
The iPhone is already a step in that direction. The iPhone broke conventional wisdom about the expected size of a successful mobile device. It also broke conventional wisdom by packing a relatively under-powered phone component. The success of the iPhone is an indication that there’s a big market for new types of mobile devices.
One more radical vision of the future of smart mobile devices is the vision of smart transparent paper. You can glimpse that vision in this compelling concept video produced by ARM
A different vision of the future of smart mobile devices is the vision of smart wearable components. The best demonstration of this vision is probably the outstanding TED video featuring Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry from MIT:
Yet another variant vision is that of the device with a smart adjustable form factor – a vision from the nanotechnology team of Nokia Research:
Finally, we can also mention the idea of smart wand in which the device:
- Acts as a controller and orchestrator of the environment, rather than being primarily a screen;
- Replies on projecting information onto any nearby screens in the environment.
It’s going to take some time before any of these ideas are going to be turned into commercial reality. But let’s not limit our thinking prematurely. The world of smart mobile devices is going to be much larger than either the market for “smartphones” or the market for “netbooks”. That’s the future for which Symbian is planning.
By the way, if anyone has favourite links to concept videos of future smart mobile devices, I’ll be very interested to hear from you!
I’m not sure iPhone was such a radical form factor. But multitouch and the glitzy animation, along with a very sleek ID were a departure from the button-centric smartphones that dominated the market before it appeared.
I always liked Nokia’s attempt to segregate the screen from the phone in products like the 770 through N810, but the market doesn’t seem to agree. Certainly the ability to use other local screen resources should be considered. I suspect projection will be a power consumption problem for a while yet. But with bluetooth in almost everything, using my notebook’s keyboard and screen to support an app on my phone should be easy. …and it should be possible (but sadly, isn’t available) today without waiting for the way cool shape-shifting nanotech future shown in the Nokia video.
At least in North America, we’re going to need some non-phone mobile devices if there is any hope of using these things as learning devices in K12 education. MNO’s here appear totally incapable of understanding creative data-only plans would let schools make use of student-owned devices. The iPod Touch is the about the only non-phone mobile device left. If the MNO’s don’t get a clue Apple will completely own the mobile learning device market and it’s 55+ million students.
[...] David over at Official Symbian Blog puts forward an interesting question which was a hot topic on twitter having conflicting views regarding the Netbook Invasion of the smartphone world. But he also takes the matter one step further to show us that something more is on way which will evolve the face of mobility once and for all. For those of you who missed the earlier videos can grab a look below. [...]
Awesome videos, thanks David.
> Will netbooks eat into the market for smartphones?
More, will netbooks eat the market for smartphones *before any of these other things exist*? Short answe, no – netbooks don’t fit in your pocket. Slightly longer answer – the first company to really crack flexible screens (tightly rolled up not just a bit bendy) wins everything.
> the ability to use other local screen resources should be considered
Support for video over Bluetooth has been in Symbian since way back when I was working on the BT stack. It’s not the handset end that is the problem – no TV manufacturer (that I know of) supports a BT connection type – classic chicken and egg.
[...] Via: Symbian Foundation Blog [...]
[...] “We, at Symbian expect that the world will become used to very different form factors and usage models”. Head over to the whole post because Symbian will be there. [...]
[...] will look at this as a spectrum of devices from Phone to MID to Netbook to Nintendo DS to Kindle to whatever. It also means that a conversation I used to hear that went “product X isn’t competition [...]
David, you probably already know this, but Carlo Ratti, et al. at SENSEable City Lab is doing notable work. There were also some good presentations around this topic at the LIFT conference about four months ago.
http://senseable.mit.edu/
And MIT’s Sandy Pentland, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdiHhqwqMYw
I suspect these works will soon intersect with the form factors you describe.
–Richard Scullin
MobileEd.org
I tried to start a similar discussion on earlier on FN about Evolution of Smartphones
http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=155567
The below link has concept from Motorola
http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/motorola_celebrates_25_years_of_mobile_phones_with_12_concepts_that_look_nothing_like_mobile_phones_13684.asp