Smartphones May Phase Out by 2050 as Immersive Scenarios Become the Future Trend
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Recently, Nikkei reported that Mizuho Bank's forecast predicts smartphones will disappear by 2050. According to the report, while smartphones currently have a global penetration rate of 65%, this figure is expected to drop to 60% by 2030 and eventually to 0% by 2050. Will smartphones truly vanish? If so, what new communication tools might emerge?
Smartphones Enter a 'Three-Phase' Overlapping Stage
Half a century has passed since the birth of the world's first mobile phone. Over these decades, with the rapid advancement of mobile communication technology, phones have become an indispensable part of daily life. However, it's also evident that the pace of phone evolution is staggering. Devices like the "brick phone," pagers, PHS handsets, and feature phones—once wildly popular in the late 20th and early 21st centuries—are now relics gathering dust. Will smartphones follow the same path?
From an evolutionary perspective, smartphone development has entered a "three-phase" overlapping stage: a bottleneck in traditional technology, the growth of emerging technologies, and the cultivation of potential users. This may accelerate their eventual exit from the historical stage.
Since Apple released the first-generation iPhone in 2007, smartphones have raced down the "fast lane," achieving monumental leaps in performance—whether in hardware like processors, memory, cameras, screens, and batteries, or in software such as operating systems, core algorithms, and app development. However, as technology advances further, both hardware improvements and software upgrades have gradually hit a bottleneck, making revolutionary innovations increasingly difficult on traditional paths. Traditional technology has entered a phase of developmental constraints.
From a technical perspective, smartphones represent a system integration of communication, networking, voice, and imaging technologies. Currently, next-generation digital technologies like generative artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and human-computer interaction have entered their growth phase. Their impact on smartphones is deepening, continuously driving user interfaces toward intelligent, immersive, and three-dimensional directions while exploring multiple technological pathways to validate future application scenarios. It is foreseeable that, driven by both technology and scenarios, the replacement of smartphones by higher-dimensional products is only a matter of time.
Additionally, in recent years, global consumers' device replacement cycles have generally lengthened. This is partly due to the extended lifespan of smartphones and partly because users' expectations for product innovation have risen. In response to these new market expectations, an increasing number of digital technology companies are venturing into new fields. By strengthening R&D and application promotion, refining business models and content ecosystems, and reshaping consumer concepts and scenarios, they are actively cultivating potential future users.
Three-Dimensional and Scenario-Based Interfaces Emerge as Future Trends
Although the ideal next-generation communication tool has yet to take shape, with the rapid development of wearable smart devices, the metaverse, and related technologies, the blueprint for humanity's next communication method is beginning to emerge.
First, as computer vision technology advances, people are no longer satisfied with two-dimensional information formats like text, images, and videos, instead seeking more visually immersive presentations. Driven by technological and demand upgrades, information presentation is accelerating its shift from 2D planes to 3D spaces. We anticipate that next-generation communication tools will feature three-dimensional user interfaces, enhancing the sense of presence in activities like communication, meetings, and discussions conducted online.
With the support of built-in sensors and other devices, the digitization of physical states and behavioral activities has become increasingly common in modern society. Many people's sleep data, travel trajectories, and other information are stored as data in smartphones, making them crucial tools for storing and analyzing such information. The next generation of communication tools will continue and enhance this vital function, further integrating into people's work and daily life scenarios while providing individuals with deeper, more comprehensive, and more intelligent measurement services.
Additionally, interactivity is a key metric for evaluating the ease of use of terminal devices. Looking at the history of smartphone development, the widespread adoption of interactive technologies such as touchscreens, gesture control, voice commands, and facial recognition has driven rapid advancements in making phones smarter, more efficient, and more convenient. The next generation of communication tools will maintain this trend while further integrating human psychology, habits, behaviors, and contextual factors to achieve more user-friendly interactions.
Lastly, smartphones host a vast number of third-party applications (Apps). While these Apps meet various needs such as social networking, online shopping, travel, and entertainment, they also bring challenges like frequent updates, cluttered storage, and complex management. The next generation of communication tools may effectively address these issues by deeply integrating Apps into the system, with digital humans or virtual idols serving as a unified entry point. Users can then activate relevant programs based on different scenarios.
The overarching theme of next-generation communication devices is intelligence. With technological advancements, the connection between artificial intelligence (AI) and communication technology is growing stronger. Looking ahead, the deep integration of AI and communication technology will bring profound transformations to the field and may reshape human communication methods.
From a network perspective, AI-based autonomous networks may become a key direction for future communication networks. Autonomous networks possess high levels of intelligence, enabling self-awareness, self-decision-making, and self-execution to provide users with highly personalized, precise, and secure network services.
From the perspective of terminal devices, personal intelligent assistants possess immense application potential. Currently, personal intelligent assistants have become a crucial new battleground fiercely contested by global smartphone giants. In the future, personal intelligent assistants will effectively assist users in making plans, managing daily life, and handling work tasks, potentially becoming the primary channel for users to communicate and connect with the external world.