{"id":47837,"date":"2016-07-03T16:45:01","date_gmt":"2016-07-03T13:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ngradio.gr\/en\/?p=47837"},"modified":"2016-07-03T16:45:01","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T13:45:01","slug":"there-will-never-be-anything-like-the-iphone-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ngradio.gr\/en\/news-el\/technology-en\/there-will-never-be-anything-like-the-iphone-again\/","title":{"rendered":"There will never be anything like the iPhone again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nine years and a few days ago, Apple released the iPhone, and the world was never the same.<\/p>\n

With the iPhone’s decade mark in sight, the tech world is starting to get a little restless for the next big shift in computing, even as theiPhone itself starts to look a little boring.<\/p>\n

Smartphones have revolutionized everything from retail to banking to education. Aren’t we due for some new, big, world-changing gadget?<\/p>\n

Depending on who you ask, the next big thing will be robots, orartificial intelligence, or virtual reality, or health-tracking devices, or self-driving cars, or any number of other trends.<\/p>\n

Well, there’s some bad news and some good news.<\/p>\n

The bad news is that we probably won’t another big, world-shaking product introduction like the iPhone any time soon.<\/p>\n

The good news is everybody’s right! The next big thing is already here, and you probably haven’t even noticed it yet.<\/p>\n

Last of the old<\/h2>\n

People think of the iPhone and the smartphones it inspired as revolutionary devices\u00a0\u2014 small enough to carry everywhere, hefty enough to handle an increasingly large number of our daily tasks, and packed full of enough cameras and GPS sensors to make apps like Snapchat and Uber uniquely possible.<\/p>\n

But consider the smartphone from another perspective. The desktop PC and the laptop are made up of some combination of a mouse, keyboard, and monitor. The smartphone just took that model, shrunk it down, and made the input\u00a0virtual and touch-based.<\/p>\n

\"MacBookFlickr\/Alejandro Pinto<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That’s not to downplay the monumental impact of smartphones. But they simply optimized something we already had, more than anything. And there’s a reason that with devices like the iPad Pro and the Surface Book, laptops, phones, and tablets are drifting closer together, as they share a similar philosophical core.<\/p>\n

To paraphrase “Return of the Jedi,” in some important ways, the iPhone wasn’t the first of a\u00a0new kind of computer, it’s the last of the old.<\/p>\n

First of the new<\/h2>\n

Meanwhile, in the last several years, we’ve seen a lot of “computers” that completely ignore that form factor: Thermostats; self-driving cars, headsets and goggles; air hockey tables;meat\u00a0thermometers; tiny voice-powered gadgets to sit in a living room. The list goes on.<\/p>\n

All of those devices are computers, as there’s a lot of processing power going on behind the scenes. But they’re nobody really thinks of them\u00a0as computers.<\/p>\n

\"markFacebook<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And while we all wonder about whether or not the next iPhone will have a headphone jack or not, these gadgets are slowly infiltrating every aspect of our lives. Fitness trackers for athletes;robot-powered burger joints for the hungry; thermostats and cameras for the home; virtual reality headsets for hardcore gamers.<\/p>\n

You’re just going to see more of this trend: Literally everything, everywhere, in all aspects of your life, will get a processor onboard and get a lot smarter.<\/p>\n

It’s not so much robots\u00a0or\u00a0<\/em>virtual reality\u00a0\u2014 it’s robots\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>virtual reality and\u00a0<\/em>wearable devices\u00a0and<\/em> artificial intelligence\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>all kinds of other stuff all at once.<\/p>\n

A galaxy far away<\/h2>\n

Not all of the devices will be any good, especially right off the bat. Existing smart-home gear, for example, is a security nightmare, and to be honest,\u00a0nobody really needs an internet-connected fridge. This Twitter account keeps an ongoing catalog of bad ideas in the “Internet of Things” movement.<\/p>\n

But it’s really just the growing pains of a trend that is functionally unstoppable: Stuff that is smart, with an internet connection back up to Amazon’s or Microsoft’s or Google’s cloud to make it even smarter still.<\/p>\n

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Might be a little late. My car is updating. @internetofshit<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/dyPHb3VJcT<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Alex Beck (@AlexLBeck) June 26, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n