7 - Future trends

Summary

Introduction

How the future will look in one, ten, or 100 years from now, no one really knows, as even how the mobile industry will change in three months’ time can't always be predicted. All we can do is share trends and insights into what we believe the environment will be like in the future, then assess how these trends are likely to shape and influence mobile handset design.

In this final chapter, several possible environments and landscapes that may exist in the future are explored, and the key technology drivers that may influence the handset design are identified. In order to match the possible environment, trends and landscapes with potential design changes, we are going to tell you a story. This story is of a woman going through her daily life in a few years’ time from now, using her handset to achieve everyday things. We will then discuss how the specific new technologies, applications, services or usage scenarios implied by the story fit into the typical handset design process, as described in Table 6.1 in Chapter 6. We repeat that sequence of events here, for convenience:

1. choice of materials,

2. user interface,

3. industrial design,

4. mechanical design,

5. hardware and software platform considerations,

6. channel to market,

7. design flow.