Ask HN: What Will Replace Smartphones?

Smart watches. They will do everything that a smart phone can do today minus the display and camera. When you need a display or keyboard, you will walk up to a work station which is literally nothing more than a display and keyboard that connects to your watch via Bluetooth. The watches CPU and storage is the primary compute resource. The smart watch will also be used to authenticate you. Three factor authentication will be the norm: watch, PIN, and thumbprint.

AR glasses.

A chip inside your brain if the transistor gets small enough.

Asking in 2020 what will replace the smartphone feels like asking in 1950 what will replace the motor car.

Augmented Reality contact lenses are the modern equivalent of 1950s predictions of nuclear-powered flying cars.

I don't think smartphones will really be replaced for forty years or more. It sounds like a long time but it really isn't. We've not come that far since the original iPhone. And that itself wasn't that much of a leap from various form factors five to ten years earlier - just a lot slicker in terms of UI. So phones will just get better. One can easily imagine the battery tech improving, perhaps practical rollable or foldable screens, lighter weight, etc. Fundamentally one wants something that easily fits in a pocket (current modern flagship phones are too large), provides a good display for interactive content and allows silent text and voice input.

I think cars, phones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers and TVs will all converge more in terms of control interfaces. There's plenty of evidence of this already with Android Auto in things like the new Polestar 2, the decline of custom TV software in favour of Android/Amazon's FireTV OS, etc. That's felt around the corner for years now, but feels like it might finally happen soon.

Evolution not revolution, in other words.

AR contact lens

I don’t think it’s one product, but the convergence of everything. The difference between the average persons iPhone/iPad/Computer is shrinking by the day. Soon all your data will be accessible everywhere, and seamless enough the average person isn’t going to notice the bridge between devices.

Autonomous vehicles. It’s a lame answer but hear me out. When you look at many of the major developments in human history many of them have been about connecting things. Often times connecting people but sometimes goods, if you look at containerization (not docker, real containers on ships). Autonomous vehicles just open up a massive new wave of being able to connect people to people, things to people, and things to things on a scale and speed that is not possible today. It will likely change all infrastructure around us, and therefore may be the thing that “replaces” the mobile phone. Not saying all interactions will happen in person but communication will change to something we might be able to imagine in this moment.

A personal device providing internet connectivity (currently a hotspot, but further evolved) + multiple local devices using that connectivity. No need for SIM and data subscription for tablet, laptop, voice comms, video comms etc. Essentially, what was envisioned by the original bluetooth PAN concept (but not necessarily implemented as BT). The aggregrated uplink is much more scalable for cellular providers, low power budget for locally connected devices means they last longer/are cheaper to make. You are one SIM (or eSIM) - great for surveillance...

Smartphone may be replaced by a credit card size card containing SIM and other important data. You slide your card in any internet connected device it becomes your smartphone. Your headphone connects to the device through Bluetooth. Your music streams from cloud storage, you can access your pictures and data from cloud storage, your apps and game automatically show up on the device you are at. You can chat, use message apps, make phone calls etc.

In the long term, I don’t see a need for a smartphone.

Honestly, I think the next step is people put the phone down. It'll be there in the background like cars are today. However, many will try to just leave it at home/work whenever they can.

I can not say it will be this or that but I do know for sure you will know what it would be when Apple releases it.

My take is that it will be an evolution of the smart device. Wearable in many ways, IOT to all your other stuff, etc.

If we get a pathway of connecting to the brain, you'll need no smartphone.