ColdFustion's Predictions Of The Future Of Tech Till The Year 2020

So I was just listening to my ipod touch the other day and began to think about the history of the ipod and if apple would eventually abandon the whole ipod line up because of the rapidly shrinking market. Somehow these thoughts progressed and I began to think about the future of all the major tech companies from a tech analyst's point of view.


Here's what I came up with. (A word of warning, these are only creative guesses and I couldn't possibly see +20 years in the future with 100% accuracy) This was fun to write and hopefully it's fun to read.


We'll start with Samsung:

SAMSUNG

2012-2013:

Samsung releases Note 2 in late 2012/ early 2013 with a larger 5.5 screen but the NOTE’s overall footprint is reduced. It features the same processor as S3 but with modified dedicated graphics. Benchmarks show that the Note 2 is the fastest device to date.

Judging by the success of the S3 and Note.. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/27/uk-samsung-earnings-idUKBRE86P1LQ20120727

Sales are a runaway success. To the extent of original Note and galaxy S3 combined (with people from the S3 market, Original Note market, undecided-between-the-two-market and I’m-sick-of-iOS-market joining forces).

2015:

Samsung focuses more on the Galaxy S # and Galaxy Note # series on the high end but still maintains a strong low end market.

APPLE

2012-2014:

Apple starts to really feel the pinch of all the court cases, suing and bad publicity (foxxcon ). Fans slowly begin to leave towards the Note, S3 or One X.


The Iphone 5 “the new iphone” is released, larger screen and a few interesting features. The new iphone surpasses the iphone 4 sales but not iphone 4S sales. Samsung is #1 at this point.

Apple Reviews ipod models and ceases support for the classic. They chose only to concentrate on the shuffle and ipod touch.


**By 2015 the touch finally gets a tele-communications radio that is small enough in size to allow a similar form factor to previous models. The ipod touch eventually morphs into an “iphone air”-esqu  product that cheaper and less powerful than the iphone, its gets larger screen just like iphone.

HTC

Early 2013:

HTC realise that the “one” series was a slight disappointment due to the camera, wifi and various other scattered issues and the galaxy S3’s success.

HTC keeps with beats and doctor dre till about 2015, but start feeling the financial pinch. At this point HTC ditch beats and partner with the floundering digital audio company, creative, eventually purchasing a division of the company.

MOTOROLA

Late 2013:

-The secretive Motorola mobility section that was purchased by google unleash a new brand of phone to replace the “nexus” fragmented brand. This comes as a surprise move to some.


-Motorola also resolve their court disputes with Microsoft around this time.

GOOGLE

2013:

By 2013 Most phones come with jelly bean and hence Google Now . It starts a mini revolution among android.

2014:

Google glasses are almost a flop at first but after multiple iterations they start to catch on by 2014, they are starting to become established.

2015:

Android 6.1 is a major step up from the previous versions and renders iOS almost obsolete.   

Google works its way into every OS in the form of chrome, which eventually turns out to be a light OS inside a browser that runs on top of any existing OS

2020:

 ** Google, lose vision and close off android’s open source nature during extremely tough economic times (not the decision of Androids leaders). They only resort to licencing out versions of the OS.


This move kills off the hundreds of small localised manufactures that thrived off low end android smartphones. Samsung has enough say to licence a respectable version of the OS.

MICROSOFT

2014:

Windows phone just can’t find a solid following and soon windows stop support. They keep the ideas and experiences learnt from windows phone to make windows 9 tablets which are 5-7 inches and have a phone mode supported by Nokia. (the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft  during the Lumia era proved the most fruitful)

Microsoft based intel (super efficient) or ARM based tablet-ultrabook hybrids become the norm and Microsoft regains some ground against the mac line up from apple.
NOKIA

2017:

Nokia sinks with WP and but help out with windows 9 tablets. Nokia gets merged with carl zeiss (digital imaging specialists) to stay afloat. Nokia also keeps a few camera specialised phones under their name.

RIM

2016:

RIM after the failure of the playbook 2 - 10inch (if they ever do get around to it), failed (but solid) OS and major slump in black berry sales, announces bankruptcy and its divisions are bought out by other large manufacturers. 






This is the reported playbook 2: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/07/this-could-be-the-10-inch-blackberry-playbook/.

General

2013:

-The “SoC battle” heats up. ARM Vs Intel. Cortex-A15 vs SMARTi EU2p (or something similar) http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2012/02/24/intel-vs-arm-battle-of-the-business-model/

2014:

-75% of people who have a smartphone also have a tablet.
http://robservations.ca/are-tablets-becoming-popular/


-The death of the "feature phone" YES!

2015:

The power and capabilities of hardware completely cease to an issue. By this time It becomes impossible to keep up to date with the generations of phones because as soon as you buy one, within the next few months, the technologies, yields and manufacturing methods has improved so much that there is potential for a new chip set offering 10x the performance of yours while using half the power.

2016:

This may be at the Galaxy S5 stage when we begin to see 6-8 cores or perhaps 64 cores by manufacturers such as toshiba (http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20120615144636_Toshiba_Develops_64_Core_System_on_Chip_for_Embedded_Apps.html) cores being the norm, 4 GB ram, graphics capabilities comparable to a 2010- 2011 gaming PC's.


It may be possible that mobile OS’s may just be full desktop OS’ just customised for touch.


-5.3 inches is the new 4.3 inches

-Asus Transformer style designs will be the norm

-80%-90% of Ultra books and laptops will have a touchscreen option

2018:

-LG and Sony Erricosn terminate their mobile sectors in the face of domination of apple, google, Samsung and htc.

Smartphones take over the world, basically. 
INTERESTING!!

So yea that's just my little guess of the future. Congrats on getting this far! Tell me what you think in the comments!