Software & Application

Nowadays almost everyone in the world are using some sort of smartphone, whether it be an iPhone, Android, Samsung, Blackberry or Windows phone. Back in the day no one could have ever imagined what cell phones would looks like today or that cell phones would even exist. After many years of different cellphones we have finally reached the end of cellphone evolution… Or have we?  Cellphones have come so far already, could they go any further?

In 2008, the very first App Store containing only 500 applications was launched (Infographic, 2015). Since then, Android, Blackberry, Nokia and Windows also came out with their own stores that now sell thousands of applications for their cellphone (Infographic, 2015).  Although apps are an evolutionary part of technology right now, what will they be in the future?  Apps nowadays consist of almost everything such as social networking, gaming, entertainment, health & wellness, banking, education, weather and many, many more.  This doesn’t leave much room for a creation of new apps, but there’s always room for improvement. 

Augmented Reality are the App of the Future!

One application that has a lot room for improvement is augmented reality apps.  Augmented reality today is simply bringing the real world and the virtual world together as one (Rouse, 2015).  David P. Collier-Brown predicts that avatars will be going to meetings instead of people flying to the meeting destination, bus tours from the comfort of your couch and playing sports with someone in another part of the world from your own gym (Bolluyt, 2015).  That sounds pretty amazing to me.

Surprisingly enough, two companies that are already using a futuristic form of augmented reality (AR) are Volkswagen and Audi.  Although this AR is only made for one of Volkswagen’s cars, it is made to help display covered information and assist technicians with completing a repair or guide them through the vehicle (Hill, 2014).  This will hopefully become an app that everyone can purchase through their phone and other handheld devices as well as made for every single car in the world, not just Volkswagen.  This will help people when they have an issue with their car on the side of the road, to open up the app and it will let you know what the problem is and what you have to do to fix it. 

Other future AR apps are going to assist with grocery shopping, advertisements, language translations and much more.   These pictures below are a few of these examples. 

 



All images from: (Hill, 2014)

Using the grocery store example, Jules White explains that scanning a single item for information would be great, but scanning an entire aisle of products and having the app tell you which items are the best quality, the cheapest or the most expensive is quite intelligent (Hill, 2014). 

Here is a quick video by Keiishi Matsuda that explains his research about the future of augmented reality.

 

Now that we are educated on the fact that augmented reality is the app of the future, what will happen to all the rest of the apps? Games? Social Media? Banking?  Although information shows there won’t be much physical change to these apps, I could only imagine that they would also fall under augmented reality.  I predict that social media apps would be scanning someone’s face while you’re walking down the street and being able to know all the information about themselves they have posted online, including pictures.  I’m sure we are all excited to see what augmented reality apps have in store for us for the future and the application business will become even more competitive when all these apps start to slowly transform in to reality.

The Future of Cellphone Software

Software for cell phones has changed so dramatically since the first iPhone was created not only the look of it, but its ability to do everything and anything.  Although iPhone’s iOS 7 software update was said to be revolutionary, iPhone had just fallen behind in software game and they needed to play catch-up with Android (Cyrillo, 2014).  Marcio Cyrillo predicts that cell phone software is moving the opposite direction, cellphones are becoming larger when they should be getting smaller and turning in to wearables (2014).  When it comes to wearables, Apple is already a step ahead with new Apple iWatch, but Android is not far behind with the creation of a similar wearable called Android Wear (Cyrillo, 2014). 

Speaking of Apple being ahead of the game, Roberto Alidori states that the iPhone 7 will have a face recognition password to unlock your phone along with many other features such as home button joystick, 3D pictures, waterproof components, a flexible phone, solar power charging and much more (2014).  Although other cellphone companies have come out with some of these features already, iPhone 7 has a very futuristic look to it.  This is a little preview of what the iPhone 7 is potentially going to look like, designed by Marek Weidlich.

Bibliography

Infographic. March 2015. Once upon a time… a short history of mobile applications.

Retrieved from http://appetiteforeducation.com/how-did-apps-become-so-popular-in-our-lives-a-short-history-of-mobile-applications/

Rouse, Margaret. September 2015. Augmented reality (AR).

Retrieved from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/augmented-reality-AR

Storify. 2014. Evolution of the Mobile Phone.

Retrieved from https://storify.com/yonathan32/the-evolution-of-cell-phones

Bolluyt, Jess. July 2015. The Mobile Apps of the Future: What Will Be Popular in 10 Years?

Retrieved from http://www.cheatsheet.com/technology/what-kinds-of-apps-will-be-popular-in-10-years.html/?a=viewall

Hill, Simon. March 2014. Get Past the Gimmicks and Gaze Upon the Future of Augmented Reality Apps.

            Retrieved from http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/future-ar-mobile/

Matsuda, Keiichi. August 2014. The future of augmented reality.

            Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRLhUH5SQVE

Cyrillo, Marcio. March 2014. The Future of Mobile: Less Phone, More Operating System

            Retrieved from http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/19/the-future-of-mobile-operating-systems-is-adaptive/

Alidori, Roberto. August 2015. What Apple patents say about iPhone 6s (or iPhone 7), iPad Air 3, Apple Watch 2, new Macs & other future Apple products?
            Retrieved from http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/apple/apple-patents-round-up-clues-future-iphones-ipads-macs-watch-future-tech-3468138/#iphone

Avni, Ran. October 2015. iPhone 7- Future Screen.

            Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKdWkc0w0-I