I feel it's time to revisit the subject of mobile devices. I've written a couple times on the subject, mostly focusing on ARM processors in doing so. But the subject covers a broad array of design houses, manufacturers, as well as form factors. It's something that's worth looking at from a fresh perspective after it's had some time to evolve further.
The mobile craze really started around the time of the recession, at the height of the economic slump (there's an oxymoron). The iPhone came out in 2007, and took the friendliness of iPods and merged them with the versatility of smartphones, while adding some completely new concepts to the mix. The result was a revolution, and competition was quick to emerge, and eager to make a grab at its potential market.
Around the same time, netbooks were building a lot of steam. They were cheap computers when people couldn't afford to spend very much, and over time even grew to have their own advantages over more expensive alternatives. They evolved into more elegant shapes and sizes, and with more powerful hardware, while offering leading-edge battery life that couldn't be found in many other portable PCs. They were the right product at the right time, and tapped a need in the market that few others had even thought of before.
There were premium portable devices too, usually cumbersome touchscreen computers with desktop OSes and the occasional slide-out keyboard. They were expensive, slow, and blew through their batteries in a couple hours, usually. Netbooks all but killed what little appeal they had, and it wasn't long before people forgot the term UMPC almost as fast as it had been coined.
So what's changed in the last few years? Well, a shit-ton. The iPhone set the standard but many other companies ran with it. Leading their charge was Google, which evolved their Android OS from a simple widget-based interface and a few built-in functions to now quickly eclipsing iOS in market share and app downloads. The processors in smartphones are not just adept at media now, but even multitasking and full-fledged internet browsing. They've essentially struck the "good enough" computing level sought after by the mainstream market, which has led to their widespread use in tablet computers, the final reincarnation of UMPCs. With their surging popularity, tablets are effectively killing netbooks, many of which still struggle at HD playback, and which failed to grab onto cellular networks so they could carry their net prowess with them on the go.
At the same time, falling prices and advancing technology have taken e-readers out of their tiny niche and into the realm of prolific success. While a lot of their functionality is easily replicated on more expensive mobile devices, their easy-to-read eInk displays and wristwatch-like battery life combined with their inexpensive cost and elegant connectivity have helped to keep them relevant. The idea of the e-reader is evolving too. While they were almost always able to offer audio playback, the introduction of color has opened them up to much broader uses, closing the gap between them and tablets. Now Amazon has announced an actual tablet version of their popular e-reader (a "super-reader"?), the Kindle Fire, blurring the line between portable devices completely. E-readers may end up merely being cheap, cloud-backed tablets in a closed software environment, which would only serve to drive costs down on real tablets.
But tablets (and "super-readers") need to start looking into lower-power screen technologies, such as transflective displays as a means of answering to the threat of e-readers. Once they can start to resolve the disadvantages in price and battery life, e-readers may become remembered as a stop-gap measure that bridged a gulf in technology and the market, much like netbooks. At that point their only competition will be smartphones.
Tablets don't get the benefit of cellular data save for a couple models that have received the privileged blessing of a mobile carrier. The devices do have the advantage of harboring the same companies and similar software of their smartphone counterparts, ensuring that major carriers have at least one tablet in their stable. But often this means signing and paying for a separate data contract, one that's usually more expensive. Until carriers realize the benefits of consolidating their billing methods, most consumers will do just as well buying WiFi-only tablets, leaving their smartphones to do most of the spur-of-the-moment web activities when not at home. As 4G takes off, truly mobile internet won't be seen as a slow, annoying hindrance compared to hooking up to the nearest hotspot. This leaves WiFi-chained tablets at a disadvantage as cell phones become a more capable means for general purpose use. The only thing going against cell phones is their screens, which are typically centered around 4 to 4.3 inches, with a few touching on 4.5". Even that will be mitigated some with the next generation of smartphones coming in at around 5" and a full 720p resolution. In my opinion this will become the next sweet-spot for mobile devices and may render the less portable tablet computer as an edge-case option.
For gamers, the other device in the mobile equation are gaming handhelds. For most consumers, simple touch-based games within reach of their pockets is enough to satisfy the brief instances of boredom encountered during the day-to-day. More complex games (that aren't strategy-based) however will always be crippled by the lack of real controls. Unfortunately the people that demand such a thing on the go will continually shrink in number, leaving the rest to play their handhelds at home, often a room or two away from a TV. The usage scenario for gaming handhelds starts to look very limited at this point, only cropping up when you aren't willing or able to cross the hallway to your home console in the living room, or when you're making long trips that are planned in advance. These days though, trips lasting much longer than three or four hours might require you to switch to your phone anyway once your 3DS or Vita runs out of power. Still, for the first year or so of their availability, gaming handhelds will offer more bang for the buck in performance, which might appeal to enthusiasts. A smartphone or tablet with the capabilities of the Vita may be several months away, and when it gets here, it won't be nearly as cheap. There also won't be much, if any software that really takes advantage of its hardware, at least for a long time.
When you're not looking to get basic browsing and media playback, and are ready to do some real computing, there's the upcoming ultrabook standard being lead by Intel. Ideally it will entail a sub-$1000 notebook at less than an inch thick, with all-day battery life, a real dual-core processor, and SSD storage allowing instant boot-up and resume time, all encased in an 11 to 13 inch form factor. In reality, they may not hit that price, at least initially, but it's a move in the right direction. Intel is looking to migrate their Atom into smaller packages (as they have been for some time), by finally embracing Android, and leaving the clam shell laptops to more capable processors. Getting more performance into tighter spaces just means the desktop computer in its big, hulking tower will continue to look more and more obsolete. Eventually I could see the larger system builders move exclusively to laptops and tablets, leaving desktops to enthusiasts and professionals, either built by themselves or through smaller retail channels.
Anyone not looking for portable computing devices might find themselves stuck plugging laptops into full-sized monitors, and syncing them with their wireless keyboards and mice. They may do that with smartphones for that matter, and if wireless HDMI (WiDi) ever takes off, there may never be any plugging of cables again, except for power. Imagine a laptop shell for your smartphone, where instead of docking the phone into a port in the back, you just press a button on either device and sync them to each other wirelessly, leaving the smartphone in your pocket or clip-on (though a means of physically connecting would probably still be necessary for battery life reasons).
In a world where smartphones and tablets start to become the center of our internet consumption, the vast majority of computers may be ones stored on our person or sitting on our nightstands. In that world, the hardware and software that makes up the fabric of computing will look a lot more diverse than the one we're in now. Consumer habits have changed, spending habits have changed, and how we consume has changed. As the devices change both to address and to influence those shifts, what we see going forward may be less centralized computing, and more computing that moves with us.
