Samsung says no-one will be using smartphones in 5 years

Samsung is currently struggling to get its next-generation handset, the Samsung Galaxy Fold, to market, and what makes it even more important is that the company sees the device as part of a bridge to a smartphone-less future.

“Smartphone design has hit a limit, that’s why we designed a folding phone,” said Kang Yun-Je, head of Samsung Electronic’s design team. “But we’re also focusing on other devices that are beginning to make a wider impact on the market, like smart earphones and smartwatches. In five years or so, people will not even realise they are wearing screens. It will be seamless.”

“[The] previous 10 years, it was an era of the smartphone,” said Samsung CEO DJ Koh. “From this year, maybe a new era is opening because of the emergence of the internet of things, 5G, AI, and all these technologies mingling together. The new era is in front of us.”

According to Diego Cibils, cofounder of AI software firm Kona, the future will look a lot more like Star Trek or Minority Report. “The smartphone was a great device for what I think is a transitional period between the desktop computing paradigm and the ‘freedom computing’ paradigm,” he says.

Instead of carrying our screens around with us, interconnected and multi-screen smart devices in each location will allow people to carry out all the tasks they would usually perform on their phones, by simply using ambient resources and flexible screens embedded in walls, vehicles, wrapped around your wrist or even woven into your clothing.

From watching videos and listening to music, to reading messages and dictating replies, “you can have the same experience, wherever you are”.

“Foldable will last a couple of years,” he said. “Another form factor is a possibility, but I will say that once 5G and the internet of things are available [together], we must think rather than smartphones, we must think smart devices. Smartphones may decline but new devices will emerge.”

See much of the ideas come to life in Samsung Display’s Vision video below:

Via The Independent