I wrote last week comparing the mobile with the computer, concluding that for most things, the computer was still better. However, I also believe that our phones will turn into our computers and be our primary digital device.
Someone left a comment challenging me on this, which is great, as I love comments and the debate surrounding them. They pointed out that for some jobs, like desktop publishing or website design, a mobile screen and tiny little keyboard will just never hack it.
So let me explain more.
My vision is that our mobiles are going to morph into something like our digital, thin client, key to our digital data, as well as a communication device. Sometimes we’ll access that data directly, as it’s stored on our phones - much as we might keep games on there today. And some will be stored on the web, so we’ll use our phones as a way of accessing and unlocking this data.
And yes, sometimes, we’ll need to see that data on a larger screen and use more sophisticated tools to manipulate it - a keyboard and mouse and whatever comes next in that line. But rather than go to a computer, we’ll slot our mobiles into a docking port in a keyboard/screen combo. These already exist in early iterations, as I’ve written before.
But how about when you want to give a presentation, you’ll still need a laptop, won’t you? Actually, no. You’ll have the presentation on your phone, or stored on the web and accessed live with your phone. And you’ll plug it into a projector, specially made for the purpose.
Sound far fetched? Well, you can get a glimpse of that future with the Project-a-Phone - yours for a mere $199.
The only slight issue is that you still need to connect it to a computer in order to project your mobile phone’s screen, but hey, it’s a great start.
But it’s a definite boon to all of us who have to demo mobile phones, applications and games to more than one person at a time. Cool.
I’m about to go travelling for eight months without a computer, just my Nokia 6630. Shall be interesting to see how it goes.
I’ll be checking email on the phone, and also blogging from it. Anything more complicated than looking up the weather will probably mean an internet cafe though.
Hi! I’m just a new blogger and I just stumbled across your site and I really like it. I read your post on computers vs moblie phones. I believe that nothing is impossible with the technology we have today. For a mobile phone to serve as a personal computer, I don’t think its far fetched.We just have to wait and see it unfold before our very eyes.
There’s another way to leverage a mobile phone for general-purpose computing: add to it a lightweight web server, driving nearby browsers via wi-fi, bluetooth, or UWB. Intel has prototyped this very thing. Near term, it looks like flash drives will become pocket servers sooner than phones.
I cover this space on my blog, Web 2.5: The Always-On-You Web
http://web2dot5.blogspot.com/
The Nokia N80, which is almost here, already does a lot of this sort of thing via its UPnP capabilities. For example, if you have a media streamer connected to an entertainment system (inc. TV), then the N80 can stream its media to this over its WiFi interface. Of course, this is focused on media, rather than business applications (such as presentations), but there’s no reason that clever companies can’t start embedding OpenOffice in their media streamers (companies like D-Link already use Linux on their devices), and then we can stream presentations or even documents from our phone, without even taking it out of our pocket.
Now this is exciting stuff, and it’s available around about now. Much more impressive than a flash drive.
(I already use my P910i as a word-processor with my Think Outside Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard — all it needs is a bigger display, and an HD TV would be fine for that — just need the protocols to stream video — hey! we’ve got them…)
Impatica ShowMate lets you hook your BlackBerry up to a projector (maybe via Bluetooth now too):
http://www.impatica.com/showmate/index.html
This time last year, I wrote about the possibilities of using your mobile as your computer :
http://www.ethergy.com/blog/2005/04/big-picture-in-mobile-knowledge-worker.html
Today’s smartphone functionality (e.g. the Treo 650) coupled with widespread high-speed wireless connectivity (EDGE/EVDO) means that you don’t need to have the full functionality of the desktop PC wherever you are. What you need is the smartphone, plus all the applications that you can run on your phone’s browser.
Russell - I see what you’re saying now and understand. Please ignore my comment at the end of your previous post.
Tim
Great post Russell, and I completely agree with you that our mobiles will become our primary computing, communications, and social networking device.
Along these lines, I just started reading Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing by Adam Greenfield (highly recommended). I also believe handhelds will become an integral part of ubiquitous computing, containing our personalized settings/digital ID that will interact with networked computing devices and sensor nets that will be integrated into everyday objects and our environment, providing true context and location awareness. Mr. Greenfield gives many examples in his book, and one can easily see how mobiles will play an important part.
I’ll also add these observations to the “mobile as our primary computing device” meme…
1. Jeff Hawkins, the co-inventor of the Palm Pilot, has been talking about a “secret third business” that Palm is working on and has yet to announce/release.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/23/technology/business2_workingtech0323/
“Indeed, lately co-founder Jeff Hawkins has been referring to Palm’s secret third product category, in addition to its PDA and smartphone lines, which features advanced multimedia capabilities. He has, however, steadfastly refused to elaborate beyond that.
Palm’s vision for the future of computing clearly puts the mobile front and center. Many people believe that this “secret third business” will combine the LifeDrive Mobile Manager’s role of being a digital repository of your life, with the communications and network/web access of the Treo to create a mobile device that allows you to store (locally or over the network), synchronize, and access *all* of your data/files/information securely. In addition, it could also contain your saved desktop state (or act as a desktop/laptop computer when docked) similar to IBM’s SoulPad research project.
http://www.research.ibm.com/WearableComputing/SoulPad/soulpad.html
2. Nokia (and others for that matter) also see the mobile as the future of personal computing and communications. Their Mobile Web Server http://research.nokia.com/research/projects/mobile-web-server/index.html sounds very reminiscent of the Apple Newton’s Personal Data Sharing http://npds.free.fr/ that allows you to share your personal data (photos, contacts, appointments, etc) with anyone on the web. You mobile becomes a repository of your personal information that you can share with trusted individuals. Imagine the social networking implications.
“As a mobile phone contains quite a lot of personal data it is straightforward to semi-automatically generate a personal home page. And contrary to websites in general, a website on a mobile phone always has its “administrator” nearby and he or she can even participate in the content generation. For instance, we have created a web-application that prompts the phone owner to take a picture, which subsequently is returned as a JPG. That is, on a personal device the website can be interactive.
This seems to cover all grounds… http://dualcor.com/details.php
I think we’ll see this mobile thin client idea soon. I don’t know if it’ll be like the Project-a-phone thing, but I think it will be more like a docking station. It will be a small device; I say the size of block of cheese (as funny as that may be) with a place to dock you phone. Add a few ports (maybe) for printers, scanners, and whatnot… that’s assuming they don’t use Bluetooth. Add in a LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse and you’ve got it. The screen just shows a large, higher resolution version of the OS on the phone. Of course, the only problem I see if for higher end things like Photoshop, games, mathematical programs,e tc just for video ram and processing power but all in all, I know I could make due with my N70 for sometime.
MobHappy still on about: When your mobile is your computer…
Maybe we are missing the point. I think we’re just confunding ourselves with semantics. Does it matter if we define things as a computer or a mobile device? I think Russ does a good job here (link below) in focusing…