The Apple Watch Points To The Future Of The Mobile Phone

Do you remember the concepts mooted when the original iPhone rumor first surfaced way back in 2006 ? And do you remember seeing the iPhone for the first time and laughing at the pictures splashed all over the magazines a week before launch of a white phone with a jog-wheel ?

The mobile phone form factor as it is today is dying. Apple knows this. Which is why the Apple Watch is like Google Glass, it's a pre-cursor to a new way of communicating with the world around us and to disrupt the mobile phone industry again. The obsession with screen size and resolution has reached its peak, nobody really wants screen real-estate in a device we talk into, it’s senseless, unnecessary and a huge battery drain for a communication device. If you can control the actual communications functionality, make calls, compose quick SMS or email messages, and interface with a proactive AI assistant like Siri, Google Now or Cortana to do it all without actually holding on to the device itself then why wouldn’t you ?

But we've seen this before, and all it takes is a look back to Star Trek not Dick Tracy to see where we're heading.

The Apple Watch represents a shift in how we communicate and the device form factor that's really necessary to achieve it. Forget the fitness tracking, what we have here is an experiment to see how users will eventually shift and accept a complete disruption to the mobile device space as we know it.

In 2007 Apple showed us that the OS was absolutely key in pushing innovation forward, and it still stands true today in 2015. Where the difference lies now is in how ambient, artificially intelligent assistants can complete as many tasks as possible without being explicitly called upon. Remember in Star Trek: TNG how they would tap on the comms badge to communicate or recall a 24th Century Wikipedia entry from the ship's computer ? (eventually as the series progressed, they dropped the need to tap the badge altogether...)

Why would you need a device with a 6" screen to achieve this ? The answer is, you don't.

Google Glass employed bone conduction to relay speech instead of an earpiece. Consider then a simple implant, or more sophisticated earpiece that does exactly the same thing but takes your instructions too. Why consult a screen when your assistant can read a web article for you instead ?

Antennas ? Why have one when it's woven into the fabric of your shirt or other item of clothing from now on ?

This is not in the realm of science fiction, this is merely 5-10 years away, if that, assuming Apple and Google start to take the mobile race in a completely different direction as wearable technology.

Before 2007, innovation in the mobile world was just a different coloured snap-on cover for the Nokia 3210. In 2015 you may well have bought the test model for the next generation of mobile phone from Apple without realising it.