Where Next For Smartphones?
We’re still in the first few weeks and months of the year, but already predictions about what new tech we’re going to see in the smartphone space are rife. The smartphone industry is currently experiencing something of a crisis. Now that the market is saturated, the growth years of 2012, 2013 and 2014 seem well behind us, and the industry is going to have to adapt to a new normal. Huge new markets simply do not exist, now that most consumers in the West and China have their own smart devices.
But there’s another problem for the industry: one that is deeper and more troubling. The market has entered an incremental phase, one where technology improves slightly year-on-year, without offering customers a game-changing experience. It’s this slower rate of progress which may ultimately undermine the industry and put vendors out of business. Even though it’s now possible to get phone contracts on bad credit, the market is still likely to stagnate. The question, then, is what do smartphone manufacturers have in their arsenal to fight back against this slower rate of progress in 2017? Let’s find out.
10nm Process
The process on which chips are fabricated is important. The smaller the feature size, the less power processors use and the more energy efficient they become. This is why companies like Intel and Qualcomm and are constantly looking for ways to make their chips smaller. Back in 2007, features on chips were 65 nm (nanometres) across. In 2017, we’ll see companies like LG, HTC, and Xiaomi pushing 10 nm. Many manufacturers in the industry hope that smaller transistors and lower power will help smartphone batteries last longer – perhaps even two full days.
Edge-To-Edge Displays
One of the coolest innovations we’ve seen in the smartphone space over the last couple of years is curved displays from Samsung. The original S7 Edge had a curved screen that was practically an edge-to-edge display but at an enormous price premium.
The problem with these early models was that they still had to leave a small bezel for the camera and other sensors. But this year, we may see the end of bezels entirely, with things like cameras positioned behind the display itself. Both Samsung and Apple and currently investigating how to put fingerprint sensors and speakers behind their screens, and both are expected to release handsets with true edge-to-edge technology in the coming year.
All Buttons Will Be Pressure Sensitive
One of the ways you knew you had a smartphone in the past was the fact that there were very few physical buttons: perhaps just a menu button and the volume rocker. But now companies are looking for ways to do away with even these. It is expected that manufacturers will replace the power button and the volume rocker with touch-based buttons instead that are pressure sensitive.
There has also been talk of 3D touch pressure buttons being developed by Apple. The company hopes to develop a kind of sense of touch for its phones, allowing them to distinguish between different types of user input.