Phones are boring, what is the future?

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

Dont they got the shidizzle over there, like physical zoom camera's, cells with 2 sim slots etc etc etc.

Sure, and you can buy that in the US too.

[OJTheAviator]

What if a manufacturer removed the front facing camera and instead put a low resolution color display on the back of the phone, to allow you to video-call or take selfies if you need to sometimes, but you aren't reliant on those features.

 

Also, I'd be excited if there was a modable phone, maybe something like a raspberry pi phone. Runs some form of linux, and hooks up well to monitor/keyboard/mouse, but could still be a smartphone.

[Egg-Roll]

2 hours ago, Canada EH said:

We want Japan Tech NOW!!!!!!!

Whatever they got, is light years ahead of Trumpland.

Japan has not been really advanced in cell tech for a while now....

But damn they have some unique stuff lol

 

https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/product/smart_phone/dm01k/index.html

 

1 hour ago, OJTheAviator said:

What if a manufacturer removed the front facing camera and instead put a low resolution color display on the back of the phone, to allow you to video-call or take selfies if you need to sometimes, but you aren't reliant on those features.

 

Nah just outright remove the selfie camera... that way we get rid of the notch faster, and save lives that are too stupid to not notice a red light while chatting or taking a pic... Not to mention the possible privacy issues of having your main display displaying outwards or glitches locking the phone on the low res side lol...

[OJTheAviator]

2 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

Nah just outright remove the selfie camera... that way we get rid of the notch faster, and save lives that are too stupid to not notice a red light while chatting or taking a pic... Not to mention the possible privacy issues of having your main display displaying outwards or glitches locking the phone on the low res side lol...

Yeah, but if the phone were to be slightly less niche, you'd want a way to take pictures or videos of yourself. As for privacy, maybe rear view mirrors? Lol, that would certainly be unusual!

[Egg-Roll]

12 minutes ago, OJTheAviator said:

Yeah, but if the phone were to be slightly less niche, you'd want a way to take pictures or videos of yourself. As for privacy, maybe rear view mirrors? Lol, that would certainly be unusual!

I'm old school I don't selfie (unless absolutely needed, which was once at a convention to start something with friends in a FB chat, I think they called it Selfie Saturday)  If I wanted to take a pic of myself I'd setup a camera  IMO I'm starting to think selfies are a medical condition how frequent some people do them...

 

Pop out mirrors from within the phone like the phone with the slide out camera, tho that works too unless you're drug of choice is a selfie then RIP camera motor 

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

13 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

 

Marketing these devices will be extremely difficult, not to mention the design challenges.

 

Samsung

- Will run into the same problems as LineageOS users using MicroG, even with ART, most apps simply won't launch, let alone receive notifications.

- Foldable phone without foldable battery technology, use case seems limited

 

ZTE

- Dual screen, nice idea, not so great use case, think 3DS. hinge breaking, axillary use of second screen, battery usage... etc

 

Microsoft

- Nice idea, but based on articles it will be a laggy mess without significant stripping down of the OS.  x86 in today's workload would be headache inducing.

[GoodBytes]

9 minutes ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Marketing these devices will be extremely difficult, not to mention the design challenges.

 

Samsung

- Will run into the same problems as LineageOS users using MicroG, even with ART, most apps simply won't launch, let alone receive notifications.

- Foldable phone without foldable battery technology, use case seems limited

 

ZTE

- Dual screen, nice idea, not so great use case, think 3DS. hinge breaking, axillary use of second screen, battery usage... etc

 

Microsoft

- Nice idea, but based on articles it will be a laggy mess without significant stripping down of the OS.  x86 in today's workload would be headache inducing.

They all have massive challenges as you said. I fully agree.

In fact, based on leaks, Microsoft foldable device project has been delayed from later this year to late next year. So a massive 1 year delay. There is no information on why, but seeing as we don't have CShell now on Windows 10, File Explorer is still the same as before, Surface Hub 2 (which needs CShell to do what it does) has been delayed, indirectly confirming it is not ready. In addition, and probably as you said, Microsoft is not happy with the performance of Windows 10 on ARM on a mobile chip (battery life), so probably more optimization needed, and maybe a faster ARM chips needed to deliver better x86 support.

 

[TheRandomness]

22 hours ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

Underailing this thread somewhat, probably small iterative improvements until someone figures out how to put the front camera behind the panel (or the selfie finally fucks off and dies like it should). Honestly someone should do a Kickstarter for a 90+% S/B ratio phone with no front camera. I'd buy one.

So what do you do when you want to take a picture of yourself? Mirror? Inconvenient. Turn the phone around and point it at yourself? You look like an idiot. The front camera is here to stay, and they cannot put it behind the LCD because, well, you’d have to have a huge sensor just like the under-glass fingerprint sensor, and you’d need somewhere to put the lens. 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, TheRandomness said:

So what do you do when you want to take a picture of yourself? Mirror? Inconvenient. Turn the phone around and point it at yourself? You look like an idiot. The front camera is here to stay, and they cannot put it behind the LCD because, well, you’d have to have a huge sensor just like the under-glass fingerprint sensor, and you’d need somewhere to put the lens. 

I don't take pictures of myself. That's the point.

[TheRandomness]

1 minute ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

I don't take pictures of myself. That's the point.

Yeah, but the main user base of the phone does. No company will create a phone missing a feature the majority uses. Companies are looking to please all, not one, and there’s not enough people who don’t want to use the front camera to warrant a phone without it. The closet you can get now is the Vivo Nex S. 

[TacoSenpai]

18 hours ago, Canada EH said:

We want Japan Tech NOW!!!!!!!

Whatever they got, is light years ahead of Trumpland.

I mean to be totally fair here for a second for a country that has such a huge mobile culture centered around cell phones and salarymen they sure missed the boat on smartphones.  As far as I know Iphones are by far dominant in Japan followed by Samsung and then Sony.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

Just now, TheRandomness said:

Yeah, but the main user base of the phone does. No company will create a phone missing a feature the majority uses. Companies are looking to please all, not one, and there’s not enough people who don’t want to use the front camera to warrant a phone without it. The closet you can get now is the Vivo Nex S. 

Could you do something like a top Type C port with a clipon camera?

[TheRandomness]

2 minutes ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

Could you do something like a top Type C port with a clipon camera?

Clip-on camera? Watch the company charge an extra $100-150 for that. 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, TheRandomness said:

Clip-on camera? Watch the company charge an extra $100-150 for that. 

Exactly. So those of us who don't waste our time taking selfies all day get a phone that's $150 cheaper

 

Also totally off topic I need to make some edits to the new PSU Tier List so can you unlock it for a while?

[TheRandomness]

1 minute ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

Exactly. So those of us who don't waste our time taking selfies all day get a phone that's $150 cheaper

 

Also totally off topic I need to make some edits to the new PSU Tier List so can you unlock it for a while?

Alternatively, you make a phone that’s only $20 more but include the front facing camera, and just don’t use it. 

 

And send a PM whenever you need it locked/unlocked. 

[AngryBeaver]

We already have a few phones that have docking stations that let you turn them in to a type of computer of sorts.

 

I think that is where the future will head, when we have ARM cpu's closing in on the offerings of our computers in terms of compute power and can squeeze in a tad more graphic power then we are getting close. Then we need the tech to catch up on storage... 8-16gb of on board ram, 512-1tb of onboard storage with much faster sd cards that can be hot swapped as needed. Then we ditch our laptops in the business world and just dock our phones for very similar functionality except for the OS flavor. Start getting on board to give android more corporate features like AD, GP equivalents and you have a hot device.

 

So I think the future will move more towards making phones our main power house for productivity and start to phase out laptops because what is the point of one if you have a lighter, more portable, and similarly powerful device.

[B33K]

On 10/22/2018 at 7:40 PM, OnyxArmos said:

I would love to be able to "plug myself" into some kind of VR world

 

On 10/22/2018 at 7:15 PM, B33K said:

robots designed for pleasure 

 

[Amazonsucks]

Brain implants

[vanished]

I don't think we need to jump ahead to what comes after phones just because they're a bit boring at the moment.  There's still a lot of innovation and change to come in the phone market.  For one thing, bezels and notches are going to go away completely.  For now, that's done (when the manufacturer can be bothered) using moving parts, but perhaps one day we'll have under screen cameras.  Foldable displays and with it, completely foldable devices appear to be in the working prototype stage so we may see real end-user devices for sale with that tech within a few years.  Perhaps beyond that, they will become totally flexible like a piece of cloth, instead of just the "hinged" design we've seen demoed so far.  That's all just for starters, and the next ~3 years or so.  Never mind what comes after that, or what else might come along the way.

 

If the foldable thing works out well, I can imagine a future where you wear your phone like a wristband, thus eliminating the need for smart watches.  It'll do that duty itself instead, and when you take it off to use as a normal phone, it'll do that too.

[sof006]

Someone will reinvent the wheel again. I imagine one of the big name manufacturers will try to release something groundbreaking before the other does to stay relevant.

 

Again though doing something like that is a risky move as it might flop. I know Samsung is delving into foldable devices, who knows we might get a phone that can fold into a wrist strap and double up as a on arm computer (like we see in sci-fi movies)