I love making predictions about the future of a particular technology as it helps me think out of the box. What’s more history is proof that even the most far-fetched predictions about a particular technology have come true, so much so that these developments have now become a part and parcel of our life.

So, here goes:

The Self Aware Smartphone

Smartphones of the future will be more aware of their surroundings – in fact they will be one with them. For example, as soon as you enter a shopping mall, your phone will immediately tell you about the various shops in the mall, their locations, the map, the discounts available in each shop and so on and so forth. More importantly, it will automatically relay information about your needs and requirements to the shop you plan to visit, so that when you arrive, you are immediately greeted by a salesperson who knows your name and more importantly what you want. This means you will be in and out of the mall or store in a jiffy and after getting an extremely personalized service.

Body Synchro

There are plenty of smartphone apps that allow you to measure your blood pressure, heart rate, and act as a CPR guide. There are others that offer medication reminders and apps are being developed that help record an electrocardiogram and do a whole a lot more. So, you might be forgiven for thinking as far as the coming together of smartphones and healthcare is concerned, the future is already here.

But it isn’t

Think 15-20 years down the line. I see a smartphone being used as a device that proactively takes lifesaving decisions. What this means is that the device can be synchronized with the user’s body and its functions, so much so that it keeps track of any changes in the person’s body that are cause for alarm. Take the case of a heart patient, who might get a heart attack in his/her sleep. But, with the smartphone keeping track of the functions of the heart and being able to pick any noticeable changes therein, it can immediately pick up the triggers for the heart attack before they work on the heart. This would allow it to send an immediate signal to emergency care/hospital/clinic, wherein, they can send an emergency medical response team, in time to save the person’s life. There might be a case wherein, the person will start getting emergency medication, even before he/she realizes what has happened.

This is just a small example of what the future can hold for smartphones when it comes to health care. Just imagine the number of lives it will save!

Super Memory

You would love a photographic memory wouldn’t you? Many of the mistakes that we make in our daily lives, is because human memory is fallible. So, in the future, with the way things are going, I am sure, your power to retain any information will become redundant. You will not need a memory as your smartphone will function as an extension of your brain (yes, seriously). It will be your storage device and it will record everything and anything, in real time, as long as you carry it with you. So, it will store data about your experiences, the places you visit, any event that you attend, meetings, etc. Every important occasion is stored, irrespective of whether it’s important or not. And all this will be done automatically, without being given instructions for the same.   So, whenever you need the required info, all you need to do is ask your device.

Super Smart AI for Special Needs

Children with special needs will be able to live a life to the fullest with the smartphones of the future. In the future, a smartphone will be plugged into their thoughts and will bring out their thoughts in the form of images, for the world to see and understand. If there is something they want to say and they are unable to express their thoughts, the smartphone will do the job for them. But this won’t be just limited to ‘children with special needs’. There are cases wherein individuals suffer from some debilitating malady which robs them the power of speech or movement, where the only thing working for them is their brain. Futuristic smartphones will allow them to communicate with the world at large by plugging into their brain signals. All that they want to do or say will probably be projected onto a high def screen or even a wall.

With the advent of such smartphones, you won’t really have to use the phrase ‘special needs’ any more. In fact, such smartphones will give such people an advantage over the general population and make them truly extraordinary.

Improved monetization

There is no doubt that the future will be defined by a cashless society and this is where the smartphone will act as the banker, through which all the financial transactions take place. More importantly, just about anything can be monetized with the help of your smartphone. Say you are attending a developer’s conference and you get the opportunity to sell some info to the participants, you will be able to do this in a jiffy through your smartphones. Yes, the exchange of information and its payments will happen without any paper or plastic money being exchanged. Let’s face it, financial data being stored on smartphones will keep getting more secure and there will come a day when somebody will hit upon the idea of doing away with money in its present form altogether. It will all be about monetizing the mobility of the smartphone, wherein knowledge can be shared easily and quickly and money can be made from it.

So, here they are. The 5 smartphone prophecies that I have a feeling will be realized sooner rather than later. I know some of them sound truly weird, but don’t be amazed if you find that they come true.

This is a Guest Post by Alicia Carter

Alicia Carter works with Perceptive Mobile Apps, a company based in Los Angeles, California. Perceptive Mobile Apps provides innovative mobile apps development services across various business domains and offers a complete range of applications that are rich in quality and adhere to the industry norms and emerging trends.

Digital content has evolved tremendously over the last 10 years – from ringtones and simple WAP games on the carrier decks, to robust applications, games, movies, songs, books, in-game currencies and much more. Considering the multitude of mobile devices we carry and our need for on-the-spot satisfaction as a society, our love for digital content and our ability to blindly follow, the magical one-touch button will only continue to grow exponentially.

My theory of iCurrency domination stems partly from my own personal experience and the fact that companies like Paypal have seen an increase in mobile transactions that are six times higher than in 2008. In fact, Paypal expects to close out 2010 with over $500 million in mobile transactions.

Embracing the Impulse

In the beginning, I made it a point to never purchase music or digital content (beyond Netflix) period. This changed in 2009. To date, I have amassed a bill of over $588 in apps, iTunes music and movie downloads. At first, my downloads were innocent enough: $0.99 iPhone apps, which turned into a song or two to help the commute move along. Soon, I was buying full albums of music that I already owned (just because it was easier than uploading the songs from my existing CD collection). Eventually, I started to rent movies from iTunes and then blindly bought apps without thinking twice. As I became more crazed for apps and music, it’s no surprise that I jumped on the iPad bandwagon as well. This opened up a whole new world where many of my favorite apps up sold me on their HD versions on the iPad. For example, I used Things by CulturedCode on a daily basis on my iPhone. Buying this $10 app led me to get the $50 Mac version and the $20 iPad version. All in all, I paid $80 to track my to-do list on multiple devices.

The impulse buy is clearly something that can lead to return purchases. It’s especially interesting that impulse purchases can train consumers to become comfortable with future purchases, without giving as much thought to price and/or necessity.

Consumer Trust

To help illustrate how Apple has captured consumer mindshare and trust in this marketplace, Mobclix conducted an impromptu survey on our mobile ad exchange network.  The sample size included 982 iPhone users through various games, health and fitness apps[1]. Of those surveyed, 756 users spent between $6 and $25 a month on apps, while 89 users spent over $26 a month on apps – which is the equivalent to buying one $0.99 app a day.

What’s even more interesting is that close to 77 percent of all participants purchased content – that’s significantly higher than the 1 to 2 percent conversion rates on casual PC games.  This level of participation is not only indicative of a trustworthy platform, but also of coupling software and content with incredible devices which have yet to be surpassed.

Let’s Put the One-Touch Button Everywhere

Digital content is a big part of our daily lives. The way we purchase, use and consume content has drastically changed. Most consumers are already conditioned to use a one-touch payment button on Amazon and iTunes. It’s now only a matter of time before people can walk into the mall, pick out some clothes and accessories, and then hit a “purchase on your mobile phone” button.

That being said, before any ubiquitous one-touch payments model can proliferate, it needs to be trusted by consumers in order to dominate the market.  Today, Apple has that trust and is poised to jump in feet first – if it decides to open up its purchasing platform and allow other mobile commerce sites to integrate with it – to direct the market as mobile commerce begins to explode exponentially on all fronts.

About the author

This guest post was written by Sunil Verma. Mr. Verma is Mobclix co-founder and focuses on product development and operations, working to create the best possible product and feature set to help developers achieve their application goals. He was most recently a partner in Venus Capital’s Private Equity Group, where he focused on investments in digital media in the U.S. and India. Previously, Sunil has authored numerous articles on the private capital markets in India. Sunil is an active member of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) and has chaired several panels at its annual conference. He previously served as an Executive Member for NextGen Partners, where he co-developed a series of educational and social events for junior investment professionals. Sunil graduated with honors from Santa Clara University with both an M.S. and B.S. in Computer Engineering.

About Mobclix

Mobclix (www.mobclix.com) is the industry’s largest targeted mobile ad exchange — the first open marketplace for mobile developers, advertisers, ad networks and agencies. The Mobclix ad exchange provides complete transparency and visibility for mobile publishers to manage their ad inventory and maximize revenue and for advertisers to increase campaign performance. Mobclix is a privately held company headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. The company was founded in September 2008 and has since been named an AlwaysOn 250 winner and won the ad:tech Limelight award.

[1]This case study was based on the results of 982 completed surveys. Participants were not provided with incentives or compensation to complete the survey. All participants were over the age of 18 and were based in the United States and Canada when the survey was conducted.

Patrick Mork - GetJar

You have a couple choices when it comes to mobile apps. You can download and install a mobile app that’s been specifically created for your smartphone, or you can simply hop online and use a web-app through your smartphone’s web browser. Now that web technology is advancing to the point where web-apps can perform many of the tasks traditionally associated with native apps, we have to wonder where apps are headed. There’s been more and more discussion among developers, handset vendors, platform owners and now advertisers on where the future of mobile lies. Will mobile apps of the future be native- or web-based?

GetJar’s Patrick Mork gives us his take on where the mobile app market is headed. Are we headed for a web-app kind of world? Or will native apps keep going strong?

What’s encouraging about that is that development of mobile applications isn’t just limited to the iPhone OS. Although Apple has received the lion’s share of media attention, Android Market now boasts an estimated 38,000 mobile applications to date. On GetJar, nearly 20% of all recent applications submissions are for Android developers, up from nearly zero a year ago.  Symbian, although smaller in the US, also remains a significant force. The Symbian OS, which has an installed base of over 250 million handsets globally, is particularly dominant in Europe and some emerging markets. In our case it’s the 2^nd largest platform following Java – which still has the largest installed base of handsets globally.

Another big advantage of native applications is that they don’t necessarily need to be connected to the Web in order to work.   As anyone who uses an iPhone in New York City will tell you, having to rely on a mobile connection can be a bit dubious at the best of times. These apps are usually built to run independently of the web or ca at least disable web functionality in a way that doesn’t ruin the user experience.

Lastly, the reality is that the phones that power apps will always be more powerful then the networks they run on. This is simple economics. The development and roll out cycles of new handsets is far faster then that of high speed mobile networks.  Nokia, Samsung and others are introducing handsets continually which are more and more powerful and make application usage, discovery and storage easier. By comparison it takes years and billions of dollars of investment to improve network speeds and infrastructure.

So what’s the problem with apps  Well the main one is fragmentation.  With so many handsets and so many platform developers and now, increasingly, brand owners face a steep challenge taking apps to the mass-market.  The proliferation of platforms adds costs, complexity and increases time to market. It also makes the communication and marketing of apps difficult for media agencies.

Contenders of mobile web argue that making mobile web applications solves this fragmentation issue. By developing apps to run off mobile web browsers they argue that you reduce costs, eliminate the need to deal with multiple platforms and also can more easily distribute your content. Our own experience distributing Mobile Site Shortcuts actually does reinforce this.  Recently we released news stating that Facebook had done 50M downloads on GetJar. This is entirely true but actually all these downloads were shortcuts to the Facebook mobile site as opposed to actual apps. The thinking here when we decided to launch site shortcuts was that many consumers simply wanted to access content easily and quickly and wouldn’t really differentiate between sites and apps. Shortcuts would also allow brands and developers to focus their resources on making apps only for high end devices while maintaining a “basic” or “light” experience for feature phone users by using their mobile site. Since our system automatically detects a users phone we’re able to provide apps to smartphone users and shortcuts to everyone else. At least this way there’s something for everyone.

About the Author
Patrick Mork is CMO for GetJar, the second largest mobile app store in the world.

Redesigned aluminum unibody styling
Starting with its iPods, Apple has settled into a fairly predictable pattern of releasing a physical redesign one year and hardware performance upgrade the next. The venerable iPhone 3G embodied the total design overhaul (while keeping hardware performance nearly unchanged.)  A year later, the 3Gs came as an identical twin, but with a surge in performance due to a faster CPU, graphics processor and upgrades to even the minor chips.

Since third-party iPhone apps and users are just starting to really take advantage of the new power from the 3Gs, it’s unlikely Apple is ready splinter it’s market again by upgrading performance in the 4^th generation iPhone (aka iPhone 4G.)   The 4G’s new cutting edge energy sipping chips will instead be used to make a slimmer and sleeker exterior design of the Mac unibody styling, similar to the iPad with a single piece of aluminum casing with single glass front panel.

Chip change
Apple will likely integrate its new A4 chip into the iPhone 4G, albeit a clocked-down version to meet performance demands without unnecessarily sapping battery power. The 1Ghz A4 for iPad will likely be underclocked to around 600Mhz—ample horsepower for a device that doesn’t support multitasking. Besides, from a marketing perspective, Apple must leave a market segment for the iPad to have a unique purpose. To launch an iPhone with nearly identical hardware capabilities would undermine the company’s own market leadership and complicate the app store with three tiers of iPhone/iTouch app performance.

OLED screen
As much as they might have liked to put an OLED on board the iPad, the technology and manufacturing was at least six months away in displays of 7 inches or more. For the iPhone 4G, however, an OLED screen makes perfect sense. OLED screens up to 5” have been popping up in most of the latest class of new gadgets since late 2009.  While the current class of OLEDs can be hard to view in direct sunlight, Samsung has announced the first production runs of its new Super AM-OLED screens that are 25% brighter and may finally be a solid option for daylight use. Samsung has been a major supplier for Apple’s mobile devices in recent years and may be keen to preserve that revenue stream and showcase their lead in OLED screen tech with Apple as the first OEM customer with its new screen.

Improved secondary/tertiary app performance
The iPhone’s 4 or 5 headline functions (docked apps) likely won’t change much on a 4G version, but we are likely to see some changes to the secondary apps (the ones that come with every phone, but aren’t docked.)

A revamped developer’s kit
Apple’s been wise about cultivating the app industry it’s created, so last year Apple was careful not to alienate older iPhone users when they unveiled apps with superior performance on a 3Gs.  This cautious step forward left many developers content to code for the lowest common denominator (iPhone 2G) for an easier. The iPhone 4G launch will likely bring with it a focus on tweaking the developer’s kit and store so that app developers are empowered and encouraged to leverage the 3Gs and 4G capabilities for more powerful, engaging, and useful apps.    This year Apple will be keen to retain its leadership position by putting the focus on apps that require a 3Gs or better for full function.

Not going to happen
No discussion of predicted iPhone 4G features would be complete without the one it likely will not have: a front-facing web cam. Yep, you read that right: despite lots of rumors that video chat is coming, it just doesn’t seem plausible—yet. The fact is that North American networks simply are nowhere near capable of handling the demand. AT&T already takes considerable heat for its lack of capacity to handle iPhone traffic. When it debuts, video chat will be a headline feature for the iPhone, but Apple won’t do that if, “it just works… sometimes.”

There is, however, much greater demand and capacity for video chat in the European and Asian markets to the extent that phones without it may be seen as old tech. This begs the question: could an international version of the iPhone be on the horizon?

Editor’s note: We’ll know more about the iPhone 4G – or whatever Apple decides to call their next-generation iPhone – in the coming months. Stay tuned!

About the Author
Aaron Vronko is the founder and service manager at Rapid Repair, the most well-known and reputable national online repair service for digital electronics, including the iPhone, iPod and more. The company dissects more than 500 devices every week at its repair shop in Kalamazoo, Michigan. For more information, visit www.rapidrepair.com.