The smartphone as the centre of a user’s digital world
In 2026 the smartphone is an indispensable device supporting the users digital life, messaging, payments for goods and services, entertainment, business, location and directions, some limited productivity, shooting movies for services like YouTube. Battery life used to be very limiting but no longer, screen resolution used to be limited but is now excellent, the touch interfaces work superbly with high reliability in all conditions. Even the audio is pretty strong on modern smartphones, easily producing music and sound for movies. The apps ecosystem provides extensibility for the device, along with nearfield protocols to add hardware easily. Voice recognition is quite strong as is the language translation offering. In 1990 my mobile phone could make voice calls for 30 minutes per battery charge and that was it, no other functionality. Excellent progress in 35 years!