For many people, cell phones are an integral part of a person’s life—unless you’re an ultra-wealthy millionaire or billionaire, a phone is basically essential in today’s world. Everyone will likely be using cell phones for decades to come, so we’ll see plenty of new features over the years. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday goes over the top ten future features for phones.
10. Holographic
The Red Hydrogen One holographic phone was released last year, but it didn’t really catch on. A full-on holographic phone would be similar to the one Tony Stark uses in the Marvel films (though not quite as high-tech because it isn’t quite realistic yet). So while a holographic phone won’t be one you can physically interact with any time soon, a holographic display itself is a possibility in the near future.
9. Super storage
As we progress into a super-fast, always-connected 5G world, it’ll help to have super storage. For example, in a few years it’d be awesome if you could download an entire season of Westworld in 4K in a matter of seconds (with 5G) and just jump to any episode, scene, or moment immediately (likely by watching on a TV, which we’ll get to soon) rather than streaming. Cloud storage is big today, but it’d be even more convenient to have files saved right on your phone to perform tasks right away.
8. Health monitoring
In terms of importance, health monitoring might be the No. 1 thing future phones should have, but it’s one of the most difficult to pull off. There are manually tracker apps that work well today, but imagine something like a diabetes person having their blood sugar levels automatically monitored by your phone. Again, it won’t be an easy things to create.
7. Remain physical
When smartphones transitioned from physical keys and keyboard to full touch screens, some people were hesitant to let go of their QWERTY keyboard phones or Blackberry. Eventually, mostly everyone made the switch to an iPhone or a full-touchscreen Android, but hopefully things don’t take a step further to brain chips or telepathy like something you might see in Black Mirror.
6. Phone numbers as IDs
SIM cards store data and allow users to transfer from phone to phone, but a SIM-less world might be better for consumers. What if instead of SIMs, phone numbers become more like IDs? You could enter your phone number in a new phone and be set (of course you’ll need a verification step or two to confirm that is actually your phone number/ID though).
5. No more notches
Let’s please eliminate the notches or circle cutouts from the front of phones. If it’s too difficult to get the front-facing camera under the screen, a tiny bezel that goes all the way across the top of the screen (like on the Galaxy S9) won’t be the end of the world, but the bezel is just ugly.
4. More connection with TVs
There are things like AirPlay and Screen Mirroring, but you either need to buy Apple TV or have compatible devices to make it work. Ideally, we’ll get to a point where all new phones work with all smart televisions, with the ability to seamlessly play movies and shows that you have downloaded on your phone (the super-fast downloads and super storage comes into play here). Also, we should also get to the point where you can download full video games right on your phone via 5G, then just connect your phone to the TV, grab a controller, and play.
3. Become a better smart remote
There are some good apps that allow you to control your television and cable, but right now, I can’t control my main smart TV (which is brand new and one of the top models available) or my DirecTV properly with my phone. In many cases, there either isn’t a mobile app available, or the mobile app that is available simply doesn’t work. In 2019, phones should be able to control a device like a television and the surrounding devices—including turning it off and on, controlling surround sound volume, and changing settings.
2. Better smart features
Similarly, phones of the future should and will have better smart features overall. Phones should act more like smart devices such as Amazon Echo and Google Home, where you can tell your phone to do commands without pressing buttons. Some might not like your phone listening to everything, but a cool feature would be your phone getting ready to fire up a certain app or take a note if it anticipates what you’re going to do based on conversations. This would take super-advanced AI, but it’ll probably happen at some point.
1. Phone as the ultimate key
Finally, the No. 1 feature that phones of the future should have is the ability to be a Swiss Army knife of sorts and unlock virtually everything. This goes back to the phone IDs and better smart features. There are things out there like cars and house doors that unlock with phones, but this can be taken a step further to automatically unlock or open doors when the phone is in the proximity (there is currently proximity unlocking from a small number of devices, but the idea is to do it with your phone number without an app). Phones are a lot harder to misplace than keys, and it’d be nice to know the phone should work every time without the need to carry an extra item (keys) around. Also, if you’re away and need someone to access the house—or you just want to let some friends in for the night—you can give temporary access via phone numbers, and an app would not need to be downloaded for it work.
#1!!!