Nokia, the former telephony leader, predicts that smartphones will disappear within a decade and be replaced by augmented and virtual reality devices and platforms.
The metaverse is announced as a cultural revolution, for the moment it is above all an aggregate of technologies. A virtual world that should bring in very real billions: the McKinsey firm predicts that their annual economic potential could generate up to 5,000 billion dollars worldwide by the end of the current decade.
For the moment, the first attempts are gently laughing. Facebook renamed itself Meta and injected 10 billion dollars a year into this project. Apple should present its mixed reality technology, and in particular its helmet which is the subject of multiple rumours.
Nokia bets on the metaverse
We did not expect it, but a former telephony leader firmly believes in it. Finland’s Nokia, which now sells various products with brand licenses (like HMD for smartphones), predicts that smartphones will disappear within a decade.
We believe smartphones will be overtaken by the metaverse experience in the second half of the decade
It is the director of strategy and technology of Nokia, Nishant Batr, who makes this forecast. For him, the smartphone will be replaced by augmented and virtual reality devices and platforms.
The smartphone keeps crushing everything
Metavers, voice assistants, mixed reality headsets… For years, everyone promised the Next Big Thingand the smartphone continues to overwrite them all.
Difficult to project oneself in this economic context, the large technological groups lay off with a vengeance. Meta laid off 11,000 people, including at Reality Labs, the team responsible for creating the Quest products and creating the metaverse. Same observation at Amazon which cut 10,000 jobs, including part of the team in charge of Alexa.
Smartphones have never been so ubiquitous
Companies working on metaverse, augmented, virtual and mixed reality are trying to invent a whole new era of technology. It’s extremely difficult on paper: imagine spending all your hours inside a helmet, when a few minutes are enough to make us sick.
It seems likely that augmented reality will eventually take hold, but smartphones have never been as present in our daily lives as they are today. Even with voice assistants or augmented reality glasses, the comparison does not hold today.
Admittedly, smartphones are boring. But, they are not replaceable and have become extremely good even at entry level. It seems difficult, in this context, to imagine their disappearance within 10 years. How to beat the device that can do everything and is always with you?
It is impossible to predict exactly how these trends will develop in the future. Forecasts and projections can be useful to help plan and make decisions, but be aware that nothing can be predicted with absolute certainty.
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