Once upon a time there were two. Now there’s four. Soon I predict that there will be two again.
Twenty years ago there was the PC and there was the phone. The two gizmos cast a lustful gaze between them.
Sure, my friends said that the marriage would be between the computer and the TV. Blame them for confusing the old CRT monitor with the TV set. It was an easy mistake.
The true romance, however, is between the computer and the phone.
Dating started with the modem, but it was clunky and difficult to manage. Modems were optional toys until about 1993 or so.
Enter the Internet, which fostered the shotgun marriage between the computer and the phone. At the same time portable technologies developed: Portable computers in the form of laptops and portable telephones in the form of cell phones.
The Internet also married the cell phone. After all, the Internet is about communications, and plural marriage makes for lots of communications.
Cell phones and the Internet are a natural match, even more so than the desktop-bound PC or the relatively clunky-but-portable laptop.
The fourth element, new to the mix, is perfected with the iPad. It’s the latest marriage, between the cell phone and the laptop. While I could say that it’s the future, it’s not. The iPad will die eventually, and be replaced by a larger version of the cell phone.
The next trend in cell phones, which you’ll see soon with the Droid X, is the Larger Screen.
I predict that cell phone displays will grow until the gizmos barely fit into your pocket. They will surf the web, take pictures and videos, store information, provide navigation, entertain, and — oh, yeah — make phone calls.
It’s that last item that’s going to kill the iPad eventually. Or, basically, merge the iPad and the iPhone.
Desktop computers will stay around forever. People who need them can’t replace the things with a cell phone. The desktop market won’t grow much, but it will exist. The future growth, however, is in the portable gizmo: the iPad for now, but the cell phone for the future.
