The Rise of Smartphones

These are the quiet times.

From April toJune, techs biggest companies all held their annual mega-events, laying out their grand visions for the next 12 months or so.

Facebook kicked it off in late April with itsF8 conference, followed byMicrosoft Build, then theGoogle I/O conference, andApples Worldwide Developers Conferencefinished things off. Amazon doesnt really hold events, but it unveiled two new Amazon Echo smart speakers during that period for good measure.

And things will get exciting again, sooner than you know it. This Fall, Apple is expected to reveal a10th-anniversary iPhone, Google will likely reveal arevamped Pixel smartphone, and Microsoft is expected to hold another one of its regular late-October Surface computer press conferences.

In the meantime, theres not much to do but reflect on what weve learned so far this year about the future of tech. And beyond the hype and the hyperbole, were starting to see the very earliest stages of a battle for the next phase of computing.

Because while Apple and Google may dominate the smartphone market today, technologies like augmented reality present whole-new platforms where theres no clear winner. So Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook, having missed out on owning a mobile platform, are doing their damndest tohasten the end of the smartphone and the end of Apple and Googles duopoly, while theyre at it.

Every major technological shift has created big opportunities for the few entrepreneurs who see it coming early in the seventies, Apple and Microsoft made big bets that the PC would be a much bigger market than gigantic room-sized mainframes, while themainframe industry decried the PC itself as a fad. We see who won that one.

Similarly, Microsoft didnt fully realize the potential of smartphones, until well after Google and Apple proved them wrong. Now, Googles Android is the most popular operating system in the world, full stop. And the iPhone has propelledApple torecord profits and to the status asthecompany to beat in tech.

Well, it seems like time is a flat circle. Right now, were seeing the earliest growing pains of augmented reality and virtual reality tech that overlays the digital world onto ourhuman senses. It means information, projected into your eyes and ears, as you need it. Why carry a phone when Netflix and WhatsApp are floating in front of you?

Some call it a fad, or just something thats too new and untestedto be considered a real threat to the smartphone. And yet, theres a veritable arms race to build these augmented reality platforms of the future.

Amazons Alexa is primarily thought of as a digital voice assistant, but having a virtual person tell you the time and weather definitely qualifies as augmented reality. Microsoft has its reality-bending HoloLens hologram goggles.Facebookand Snapchat have both built augmented reality straight into the camera. Even Google-backed startupMagic Leap thinks its yet-to-released goggles have a shot at becoming a new platform.

The net result is arace to build whatever is going to do the smartphone what the PC did to the mainframe. What these companies all have in common is that they missed the boat on building smartphone operating systems of their own. Now, its on them to build whatever comes next.

Apple and Google are well aware of the threat and are not standing still.

Apple has ARkit, a system for building augmented reality into iPhone apps, using the phones built-in camera. Its technologically robust enough and easy enough to use that developers love it, givingApple a nice foothold in augmented reality. If and whenApple releases smart glasses, those apps will come right over.

Google has various augmented reality effortsin the works, including Project Tango. And although the first version of the Google Glass headset flopped, if Google figures out how to revamp the device, it will have a vehicle to extend Android into the AR realm.

In a weird way, going on the defensive like this almost gives Apple a perverse incentive to replace the iPhone: IfApple can build the next great hardware platform itself, it means that Amazon cant do it with Alexa, and Microsoft cant do it with HoloLens.

In the meantime, as we appreciate all the new hardware and software goodies coming out later this year, keep the perspective that everything were seeing now is the first salvo in a computing war that will rage forthe next decade and beyond.

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The Smartphone Is Eventually Going to Die, and Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook Are Racing to Kill It - Futurism