Dead Smartphone

Dead Smartphone

When something goes out of style, it’s tossed to the side to never be looked at again. There are so many things in our world that are on their way out the door, like Heavy metal music, the cassette tape, the CD, VHS rental stores, or a hard copy of any computer game. It’s amazing how many dead things we have around. And some think that the smartphone is about to join this list.

I think the touch control technology is too young to be written off like that. Ok, we’ve got little screens, then narrow and long screens, then large screens and for the last two years – edgeless or curved screens. What’s next?

Projected screens, flexible screens. This spring, Sony introduced the Xperia Touch: the contraption for your mobile to project the touchscreen on any smooth surface, horizontal or vertical alike. Projecting the screen content is not a new thing, however. For years now, Japanese mobile phones by Fujitsu could project videos and pictures on to the wall. Japanese phones can produce some mind-blowing gadgets. But Sony, also from Japan, I’m sure you remember – went further. The projected screen saves all the features of the touch display. Your table, a fridge door or a wall can turn into a touch screen. Still, this is an external and rather bulky contraption, priced around $1,600.

Flexible handsets are being forced by Samsung and some other Asia brands. This phone has not yet gone through the concept stage, however. The sticking point is the battery. While flexible screens can be made of material similar to e-paper, implemented in e-readers like Kindle, their batteries cannot. The smart watches mean to fill the gap for a while, but obviously, mobiles are being designed to leave the pockets and move to your wrists.

But, the “Dead Smartphone” club members claim the wearables already replace the bulky phones completely. Theirs is the future of artificial intellect and digital assistants everywhere: at home, at school, at work, at public facilities. It’s like having phone booths back, but on a more advanced level. What this splendid world of the future lacks, is privacy. I’d like to text the person in privacy, after all. The same goes for smart homes. Your home shouldn’t constantly be recording you and what you do, nor should the coffee shop down the street know who you are planning on meeting later that day within its walls.

I believe one of the major faults of our environment is immobility. You have to stay online in order to be in contact with anyone, forcing you to have to stick to staying in urban areas. Provided, the whole city features the smart network- which makes every house, every lamppost and every door, smarter than us. So, in the country we’ll have to get our outdated and old-fashioned smartphones back, in order to stay in contact with family and friends. This again, shows that the smartphone form factor is far from being dead.

The futurists can object though, and say “How about wearables, AR or VR glasses? They’ve arrived recently and are the hottest thing on the block”. The hottest items aren’t always practical. There are thousands of people with sight conditions who have to wear glasses 24/7.

Plugging in some gimmick would cripple their field of vision. But, even the perfect eyesight doesn’t ensure safety when it comes to VR headsets. Using the augmented reality wearables takes some practice and also changing the traffic regulations. And from my experience, these are the most conservative regulations ever. Now the lawyers have the robocars on their plate when it comes to lawsuits. Besides, as far as we know, the existing smart glasses do demand a smartphone in order to tether. As for the VR gadgets, we have already written about how dangerous they are. You just burn your retina and cornea with them. Consumers with sight conditions will be excluded from the market. There’s absolutely no way manufacturers will push these things to replace our phones.

The most unbelievable scenario, is the arrival of the phones as chip implants. Ones like the kind we see in the “Total Recall” remake.

Implants have been existing since 2012, when a French company announced the phone implant, but the gadget to match the one Quaid had in the movie, never actually came. Yet, there are some implants that can hack your phone: like the one Seth Wahle of APA Wireless wears. With it, he can hack anyone’s phone and all it takes is simply grabbing the gadget. But, buying a gadget and having to undergo an invasive practice are completely different things. The idea to go to a hospital to get a newer smartphone installed just don’t sit well with us.

Besides, we won’t be able to buy your old phones then. iGotOffer is always glad to help the customers, but we don’t buy hands, only handsets: Sell my used electronics online today!