Advanced Mobile Devices as a Technami

blogger: Richard Monson-Haefel

In my last post I wrote about “technami” technologies which cause major changes in the world and the lives we live.  Examples included the internal combustion engine, telephone, computer, Internet, genetic engineering, and nano-technology. This post addresses a budding technami, the Advanced Mobile Device (AMD).

Just as the computer and the Internet have changed how we process and share information, so too will the Advanced Mobile Device (AMD) – and probably more quickly than either genetic engineering or nanotechnology.  An advanced mobile device is a hand-held technology that provides telephony, personal information management, and is a platform for many other applications.  Today we call these AMDs either smartphones, which are mobile phones that have had personal information management (PIMs) added, or converged phones, which are Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) that have added mobile phone capabilities. The truth is these devices are all converging in to a single category that will not be segmented by manufacturing type (i.e. mobile phones or handhelds) for much longer.  The AMD will be your phone, but it will also be your watch, your digital camera, your personal computer, your navigator, your remote controller, and your primary interface into the digital world.

 

Today AMDs are pretty limited. They are either mobile phones with shoddy PIM capabilities or PDAs with shoddy mobile phone capabilities.  In the future, AMDs will be the only device you will ever use. Desktop and laptop computers will largely disappear to be replaced by AMDs that can be used on-the-run or can wirelessly work with stationary monitors and full keyboards. In the future, you won’t have a laptop, a desktop, and a cell phone. You’ll own one device, an AMD. AMDs will eventually displace the telephone (both mobile and land-line), Television, PIMs, desktop and laptop computers, remote controls of every type, watches, stereos, wallets, credit cards, home and automobile keys, and other electronic devices. In short, AMDs will become a natural extension of our bodies – not in the sense that they are extra fingers – but we will become so dependent on them for everything (e.g. correspondence, Internet access, PIM, entertainment, navigation, and commerce) that people will depend on them completely. Regardless of the form factor, in twenty years AMDs will be as much of a part of our daily lives as clothing.

 

The closest thing to an AMD today, in my opinion, is the Apple iPhone due for release this June. The iPhone is not even close to fully realizing the potential of the AMD, but it’s a first step toward what will become a major life-changing technological advancement.