Opinion
With AR it could, believes Mat Gallagher. And perhaps in the future the iPhone actually has a smaller screen...
September is a big month for Apple users, as it’s usually the time when the new iPhone is announced. I suspect by the time you read this we will already know what the iPhone 15 has in store for us. Faster memory, brighter screens, higher-quality cameras, and longer battery life are all par for the course these days but there’s often a killer feature in there too.
Smartphones have become much more than just a communications tool. For me, my phone provides my social media and news updates, my banking, shopping, music collection, camera and smart home hub.
Even when I get in my car, my iPhone syncs automatically with CarPlay to provide my navigation and music. Having the ability to do this was a major factor in choosing my last car and I’m not sure I’d buy a car that didn’t offer it these days.
Each year, smartphones get more powerful. New folding phones like the Samsung Galaxy Fold 5 and Google Pixel Fold provide a bigger screen experience to rival a tablet. It’s forcing tablets to become more like laptops, with magnetic keyboard options and faster processors.
So will there eventually be a natural selection process that makes one of these devices obsolete? If Apple does eventually release a folding iPhone, would it kill the iPad? Or could a folding iPad make the MacBook unneeded?
While folding tech will move things forward, I expect the big change to come with AR or mixed reality. Apple’s Vision Pro is a glimpse into the future of how we use our devices, taking a lot of functions we would normally use our phones or tablets for and projecting them in front of our eyes.
Mixed reality headsets have the potential to make all sorts of devices obsolete
Through the use of headsets like the Vision Pro, Meta Quest Pro and HTC Vive Pro 2, you can do far more than gaming. With outside cameras, these devices allow you to conjure up virtual screens in real se
