And you also have to make a bet that Apple won't come to dominate that area as well (even if they aren't first to it). AR glasses have some promise to be a new general purpose computing platform, but even then I'm skeptical that it will be able to mount a serious challenge to the smartphone.
They've only happened every decade so far: 1960 (IC), 1970 (DARPA), 1980 (PC), 1990 (GUI), 2000 (Internet), 2010 (smartphone).
Text-based computing -> GUIs was a shift. Broadly speaking, there is no market today for consumer-facing computers where text is the only input capability.
The most profitable company in the PC era also has the most profitable PC unit today. The Internet runs on top of the GUI layer. The smartphone is (in much of the world) an "also" not an "instead."
(One could argue that the original MSFT goal of being on every desktop was centered on work. By that metric, most smartphone usage falls into a separate category of consumer computing that largely is distinct from business computing, where desktops & laptops still rule.)
A grandparent(-ish) post compares the iPhone to the Google Home. Much like the iPhone did not replace my laptop (which did not replace the server in the datacenter), voice-driven devices will not replace mobile phones. All Excel (ahem) at different use cases.
That’s 3 computing paradigm shifts in 60 years.
I'm not sure how long it will take, but it honestly seems inevitable.
Maybe it won't be glasses, but it will almost certainly be something we wear instead of a thing that we carry around forever.
It's notable that a combination of Apple Watch + Airpods can fulfill most of these needs, with the exception of being a high quality camera and a few other things that require a larger screen. But that just shows you that if anyone is going to disrupt Apple, it's going to be Apple.
I'm sure someone asked a similar question about personal computers in the early 80's. They didn't go away when smartphones became prevalent, they became computational work-horses and in the same way an AR system will never be able to pack the computing punch and battery life of a smartphone.
But similar to how a smart-phone complements a PC, AR tech will simplify how we interact with specific parts of the world around us like navigation, notifications, and merge with existing tech like wireless earphones with noise cancellation and conversation/audio-enhancement to provide minimum necessary utility.
More features will bleed down the chain from PC to phone to AR, but with size comes certain advantages and disadvantages, and a large object can always hold more juice and computational power.
I think the biggest disruption will come from global low latency wireless internet - suddenly computational power can be uncoupled from the device and AR would be able to offload the power-hungry CPU/GPU's and large batteries needed for fluid and powerful interaction. But I'm not sure Elon Musk's satellite internet project will be that disruptor - so it might be another long wait until that next big thing happens.
The PC can be dated back 1975. But even in 2000, only 51% of US households had a personal computer. Not even 20 years later, it sure looks like the PC is going the way of the calculator and typewriter.
The first modern smartphone can be dated back to 1996, but it wasn't until 2013 that 50% of US adults had one.
Two year later, in late 2015, mobile web traffic had already overtaken desktop.
By 2033, I would be surprised if we don't have something challenging the smartphone. And the technology is probably around already.
These technologies seem to have about a 40-50 year life cycle. The first half of the life-cycle is the stage it takes to get to 50% saturation. Then the next third of the stage they dominate. The final third of the stage, they phase out to a niche market.
Sure, the smartphone is the bees knees today. But, really, is it? You've got to carry it with you everywhere you go. What if you just had a contact you kept over your eye at all times? What if you just had something you kept tucked behind your ear at all times?
How often do you REALLY need that screen? Remember, when the iPhone came out -- most people were thinking -- who's going to buy a smartphone without a freaking keyboard? Within literally 2 years, Blackberry's stock had dropped like 70%. Within 5 years, it was on the brink of bankruptcy.
And before that, when the first Palm came out in 1996 -- how many people do you think REALLY envisioned the smartphones we have today dominating web traffic and starting to encroach on the work station?
And that comes down to the culture and mindset of the company. Which given that they have Apple University and have an executive team which very much encapsulates the “Apple Way” isn’t going to change.
Yes there are plenty of failed companies but very few aggressively defend their culture like Apple does. And culture rot for me is such a big part of failure.
