Every year the difference between devices of different classes is erased more and more. While this is still not particularly striking, but every year the differences between mobile devices become less and less.
It used to be easy. There was a telephone. There was a computer. There was a camera. There was a wristwatch. There was a music player. What do they have in common? Yes, about the same as the crow and the desk. These were fundamentally different things, similar to each other no more than a coffee machine to an iron.
All this was not so long ago, just a couple of decades ago, and most of us remember those times very well. But for technology, ten years is practically an eternity. Pagers, cassette players, electronic notebooks, Tetrises and many other devices have died out during this time like dinosaurs, many of them have not even been left with bones.
The ice age that caused the change of eras in the world of mobile technology was the massive transition to digital. At first it seemed that we were talking more about evolution than about revolution, that the existing devices would only slightly change externally, but the very essence would remain unchanged. Well, you used to listen to music on cassettes, but now it's on CD, does it really matter?
Well, probably, the dinosaurs once thought that it would only be necessary to grow wool, and it would be possible to live happily even during the ice age. But something just didn't work out for them. Either the plants that served as food for herbivorous dinosaurs could not adapt to the new conditions and became extinct as a class, or the egg clutches froze at sub-zero temperatures. Or maybe they were completely cold-blooded, and no wool from the beginning could help them in any way. One way or another, they were replaced by completely different animals, maybe at first they resembled dinosaurs in appearance, but only fundamentally different in essence.
Something similar happened with mobile equipment, but with one significant amendment. If in the animal kingdom only monkeys evolved to a reasonable state, then in the world of mobile devices, almost everyone became wiser. Cameras have learned to shoot both stills and video with equal success. The players got support for video clips. Phones began to support the installation of additional programs. The watch got stopwatches, calendars, timers and a bunch of alarms. Photo frames began to display electronic rather than paper photographs.
 |
Communicator – device history |
In fact, these were devices of a fundamentally different class, but for a long time they still tried to look like their ancestors, diligently making a fool of themselves. First of all, simply because this is exactly what people expected from them, who still wanted to see phones, players and cameras on store shelves, and not some hybrid devices with a bunch of incomprehensible functions and driving into a stupor of possibilities. Call-enabled cameras, phones with five-inch color screens, and clocks with built-in video cameras were still considered attributes of science fiction films and stories about secret agents; they had no place in real life. Now, when you look back, you are tempted to exclaim 'Comrades! Look around! They are already among you! ', But in those days even the very idea of such devices seemed absolutely wild. However, the first alarm bells were heard even then – technically advanced youth (and not only them) began to use 'mobile phones' not only as telephones, but also as cameras, electronic readers, music players, and even simple game consoles. Nevertheless, the majority of people did not take all this seriously – the difference between the text on a tiny screen and a real book or photo taken with a simple phone camera, and a photo from a high-quality soap dish was too noticeable.
And then Android and iOS came into the world. It was then that the era of feigned electronic modesty finally ended and the era of Smart began. Photo frames and e-readers somehow very quickly ceased to be tablets, and they, in turn, acquired external keyboards and began to painfully resemble laptops. The iPod became almost a complete copy iPhone, and then there was an enlarged version called iPad. Watches and cameras got Internet access and support for social networks, and smartphones began to take pictures at the level of popular digital point-and-shoot cameras and shoot HD video.
Where do convertible laptops end and tablets with external keyboards begin? Up to what size does a phablet remain a phablet, and when does it become a compact tablet? And is this compact tablet much different from the well-known player based on the same hardware and the same OS? Is there a big difference between a camera with call support and a phone that can shoot at the level of such a camera? Or between a smartwatch with fitness tracker functionality and a fitness tracker with a color display? Even today, the answers to these questions are not always obvious.
More and more devices began to be produced on approximately the same hardware and work on the same OS, and this is just the beginning – somewhere on the horizon there is already a 'single on all platforms' Windows, cheap Chromebooks with support for Android apps from Google Play and foldable tablets that can be collapsed to the size of a smartphone. And all this against the backdrop of an ever-growing number of cross-platform applications and services that provide a more or less similar set of functions on any device and any OS.
[iframe url = '// www.youtube.com/embed/sAAie_Zf1pU' width = '640 ″ height =' 360 ″ scrolling = 'no' frameborder = '0 ″ marginheight =' 0 ']
It may be that the day when devices of different classes will differ from each other only in size is not far off. Each manufacturer will have a pair of standard blanks, from which it will be possible to assemble almost anything in no time. We take a tablet, supply it with a solid battery and a couple of extra ports, attach the keyboard to it – and now we have a laptop. We take a standard smartphone blank, change the case to a slightly thicker one and supplement it with higher class optics – and now this is not a smartphone, but a 'smart' digital soap dish. Or we insert an expensive audio chip and a couple of external playback control buttons into it – now it's not a phone, but a cool player. All this works on the same OS, has the same set of familiar programs, synchronizes data with the cloud without any problems and allows you to painlessly change one device to another literally on the fly. It makes sense to take a compact smartphone to the office that fits comfortably in a trouser pocket. And when going out for a walk, change it to a slightly larger camera, without interrupting chatting and continuing to read a book open on a smartphone. Going on vacation? Take a 'foldable' tablet with you, which when folded looks exactly like a smartphone, but folds out to fit a laptop display if desired.
It is clear that there is no talk of professional devices, turning a smartphone into a computer for watching 3D video or into a cool DSLR will not work. But the majority do not need all this. From a camera, they need mainly optical zoom, and from a laptop – a keyboard and support for familiar applications. As for the players, support for Google Music or Apple Music today can become a much more significant plus than support for rare formats or professional sound.
In the meantime, generic devices are diligently pretending to be highly specialized, in the same way that 'smart' devices pretended to be 'dumb' a few years ago. It seems that the technical possibility has been there for a long time, but only this idea is not yet in demand among buyers. Painfully all this is unusual. And the implementation is still lame – and in most cases you cannot do without docking stations, and the software is far from ideal, and the price is such that it is better to buy two separate devices.
In addition, I do not think that many mobile technology manufacturers are really eager to release this genie from the bottle. Cameras with Android are good only as long as they compete with competitors' cameras, but not with phones of their own brand. And 'hybrid' and 'folding' devices make sense only when they lead to increased profits, and do not kill demand for 2-3 classes of other devices at once.
And yet, no matter how many dinosaurs try to grow wool, after the onset of the ice age, their extinction is a matter of time. Soap trays have been going through hard times for a long time, players are not selling as well as before, there is no resumption of growth in notebook sales and is not yet expected. And then there is the manufacturer of software and components are very afraid of being tied to an endangered class of devices and are actively climbing into neighboring areas. Intel is conquering the mobile processor market with might and main, Microsoft for which year has been trying to enter the smartphone market, everyone at Google is trying to launch laptops on ChromeOS.
For now, you can pretend that a laptop and a tablet are fundamentally different devices, and there is and cannot be anything in common between a smartphone and a camera. Due to the long-term habits of buyers, due to different dimensions, due to the peculiarities of the software. Digital players demanded to record music on CD, as if trying to prove that they had nothing and could not have anything in common with smartphones. And the photo frames were disguised as interior items, and not technical devices, potentially not inferior to laptops. But as soon as one one threw off the annoying mask, everyone else, willy-nilly, had to follow his example so as not to be left in the fools.
Wondering what event will shake up the world of mobile technology this time? The emergence of folding devices or screens rolling into a tube? The release of truly convenient operating systems that are uniform across all types of devices? The emergence of a new player of the level Apple, able to transform an idea that has been in the air for a long time into a really interesting product? I think that in a couple of years we will find out.
