The speculation and anticipation over the iPad is now over, at least in the U.S., and we fickle mobile enthusiasts now turn our thoughts to what will come next. The past two years have been exciting in the mobile space, with smartphones gaining full computing power and netbooks taking the world by storm. Apple has shaken things up with the iPad, and slates are on the minds of many enthusiasts. Will the Next Big Thing (NBT) in the mobile space come from the phone sector, or the notebook segment or will it be a tablet of some sort? That’s not clear at this point, but I believe that the driver will not be technology, it will be usage driven.
What I mean by usage driven is the NBT is going to come from creating a new way to do things that people want to do. That may come from online activities, or handling daily tasks or a combination of those. There are already mobile devices that can do everything that people want, whether in a laptop form or with a phone. The trick is going to lie in showing a new way to do these things that blows everything else out of the water. That’s not going to be easy for companies to produce.
Smartphones of today are full computers that can do many of the things formerly relegated to bigger devices. The processors are fast and platforms have evolved to take advantage of that in the phone space. While phones are often able to do the things people want, the restrictions of the screen size and input mechanisms are not going away. While I agree with Stacey at GigaOM that multiple core processors in phones will make them incredibly powerful, the input/output limitations will prevent them from being able to use that power to its fullest potential. We will see the smartphone continue to evolve, but the NBT will not be a phone due to these limitations.
Notebooks are evolving at a slower pace than phones, and we’re not seeing new usage scenarios for them. They will continue to dominate the computing space, but improvements will be incremental at best. Netbooks are still selling in good numbers, but we’ve seen just about everything that can be packed into the small budget-friendly form already done. The notebook/netbook will continue to be the primary computers for most folks, but hardly the NBT.
Slates have gotten new life in the minds of many, but they are not new technology. The iPad has pushed slates to the forefront of the mobile space, and while the form makes it possible to do many things in a more appropriate way, it doesn’t bring anything new to the user. It doesn’t create new uses for consumers like the NBT should do. The iPad is fun and useful, but at its core it is only providing uses that are already provided by other devices. Apple will sell a boatload of iPads, but it’s not the NBT.
The same is going to hold true for the many slates we are bound to see coming down the pike. They will do many things, and some of them very well, but nothing really new. They will attempt to duplicate the popularity of the iPad, and some may come close, but there won’t be anything truly innovative in this process. The slate will simply be another way to do the things that folks already do.
It may sound like I am cynical, and perhaps that is true. But I also find it a great time to be a mobile enthusiast, as the advancements in the past few years have been extraordinary. I am itching to see something new come along that will blow me away in sheer usefulness. That’s the primary requirement for the NBT for me — give me a new use that will rock my world.
The Microsoft Courier concept that has leaked out in videos is the primary candidate for the NBT. This device doesn’t fit into current categories, it is creating something totally new. It is an attempt to bring the day planner of old into the digital age, and that can be huge. It was only a few years ago when seemingly everyone carried one of those paper day planners. I attended countless meetings where the conference table was covered with planners. I used one myself, it was a way to organize my life, keep track of the things important to me and to make sure I didn’t overlook anything significant.
Smartphones began to take over some of the roles of the day planner, and they started to disappear. But the smartphone, due to the screen limitations mentioned, can’t really replace all of the benefits the day planner provided. This is where the Courier has amazing potential. The videos of the Courier show a day planner that totally integrates the web, the professional life and the social life of the user. It is the glue that binds all of that together, and has the potential to leverage that in a way that can vary as needed for the individual. It is a way to make mobile tech highly personal, and this can be big.
Where the digital planner (Courier) can make the biggest contribution for the user is through search. The day planner of old suffered from the inability to easily find things as needed, especially those things not in the immediate past. The Courier will not suffer from that disadvantage; it will enable the user to find anything, or more appropriately everything as needed. It will turn the web into a vast fountain of information that when coupled with each user’s personal information, will be the most important tool to come along in a great while.
So my requirement that the NBT present a new use for the individual is met by the Courier as demonstrated. Keeping all of the stuff that is important to the individual at hand, in an easily accessible way. It is personal by nature, and that can change the way we work. This could be the Next Big Thing.
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