Better processors, software and screens due on devices that mimic PCs
Smartphones with even more smarts are in the pipeline, aided by improved processing power, screen technology and internal, as well as external, software.
"Smartphones are starting to overtake the PC in terms of the primacy of getting information and entertainment from the Internet," says Mike Woodward, vice president of the mobile phone portfolio for AT&T.
"There’s a whole generation of people, who, if they wanted to go find out something, they went and sat down at the computer and got it. There’s a generation coming up behind that, if they need to grab some quick information, a movie ticket, a dinner reservation — they immediately reach for their smartphone, whether they’re out on the go or not."
App store development
Future phones may or may not look much different than the black-slab models so widely available today, iterations of the iPhone.
Even though "from the user's point of view it's the hardware that drives decision-making, much more of the differentiation and uniqueness in devices is in software," says Charles Golvin, Forrester Research principal analyst.
"Look at the influence of the app (applications) market. People aren’t making their decisions about phones based on what apps to buy. But it is becoming something of a consideration. The fact that there are so few apps for the Palm devices is in small part dampening enthusiasm for them."
Apple's App Store, with more than 150,000 apps, or programs, that can be downloaded directly to the iPhone, leads the way. Palm now has more than 2,000 apps now available for phones using its webOS operating system. Google's Android Market has 30,000 apps, and Research In Motion's BlackBerry App World, 4,700.
Smartphones, which run on specialized operating systems, continue to increase in popularity, particularly in the United States, where 25 percent more smartphones were shipped in the fourth quarter last year than the third, according to ABI Research
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