Today I was going through a few videos of the AllThingsD conference held in 2007. Looking at Bill and Steve sharing their views and having a look at the technology which we have with us today, it can be said that lot of what these guys said then is true today (If not all). There was a lot of talk about the post PC devices by Steve and a lot of talk about how the IPhone was the future and how tablets would come into the fray.
In 2007, Steve had said that IPhone would change the way we think about phones and wow, was he correct??? The iPhone was a complete paradigm shift as far as the gadgets market goes, leave aside the smartphone market. Nokia was left far behind, RIM has started struggling, Android is doing very well and the market has been completely disrupted. So, What is it that caused the disruption? Was it the exceptional apps, which were made for the IOS? Was the IPhone perfect from the day it launched? Or was it the touch? For me, it was the touch. IPhone may not have been the first touch phone but it was the first serious touch phone. We felt like a child in front of the iPhone and our fingers did all the magic in front of us. We had our email, maps and friends on our fingertips. Even with the advent of Android based touch phones and the use of better processors in phones, the IPhone still remains the phone to beat. I would say, it is still the best available smartphone by a fair distance. Android (Although its market share is already soaring above others) still seems like the poor man’s alternative to IPhone but I think it will catch up in a year or two. With the emergence of IPad the form factor of touch devices has again become a talking point. There is no competition for the Ipad2 and Apple can make billions.
A lot of people are betting a lot on touch and now multi-touch as the next big bet for Apple and others in the industry. All the good smartphones will soon have good multi-touch based gestures and with the extremely powerful processors coming into the mobile devices, the sky seems to be the limit. NFC’s and projectors might be built into the smartphones soon too. But, these are no disruptions for the tablet or smartphone industry. These are coming in a matter of few days. So, when is the next disruption coming? What will it be? Who will bring it. It can’t be all the Sixth Sense stuff coming in all that soon.
My bet this time round is on Microsoft. Microsoft with its huge lead in motion sensing can bring in the next paradigm shift. Kinect is awesome. Let us all agree to this bit. It is the most thrilling gaming technology (although the more I see Kinect getting hacked, the more I feel it is much more than a gaming technology). My bet would be Motion sensing based OS from Microsoft for tablets (Tablets are more suited) and smartphones. 3D gestures are just much more fun than touch and multi-touch gestures. Imagine, yourself making a custom gesture to open a certain app on the tablet or the smartphone. If the IPod was an indication to the IPhone, then the Kinect has to be an indication to motion sensing based mobile devices. Also, the lead that Microsoft enjoys in this sector is so huge (as far as I know), that it might end up having the same kind of advantage that the IPhone enjoyed after its launch and the IPad enjoys today.
Motion sensing based apps make more sense for tablets but I won’t hate to see them becoming an option for smartphones too. Motion sensing is a disruption for the technology industry as a whole and not just the tablet or smartphone industry. We have heard Steve say, There is an app for that. Do we see a comeback by Bill and something like him saying as disruptive as I have a ges(personalized 3D Gesture) for that? I sense, its coming. Motion Sensing based tablets and a lot more is imminent to me. How about you? Let the speculations begin.
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