Mobile Info Planet

The advances in the last 10 years of handheld computing have been quite staggering. We have gone from, in the case of the Palm Vx which was the device at the turn of the last century, a black and white 160x160px screen, a 20 Mhz processor and 8 MB of memory, to 480x800px color screens, 1 Ghz processors and up to 32 GB(!) of internal memory.

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And the Vx did not have any phone capabilities of course, nor GPS or any multimedia (though a comparison to a Pocket PC from that era would fare a little better, with its slightly higher resolution color screen and multitasking).

So what can we expect to see in the next 10 years?

I don't think that we will see an equivalent leap in hardware, in part simply because it is not practical in some cases (for example, does it make sense to have 1440x900px on a 4" screen, even if it were technically possible?). Instead, I think that the major advances will be in the software, more specifically the OS, and the services that run on top of it. As we become more connected through social networks (Twitter, MySpace, Facebook...) and software (Skype, GTalk...), the demands on the mobile platforms increase to seamlessly and gracefully provide that connectivity. The inevitable result will be that 'smartphones' will turn into 'mobile computers', where the focus is on communication in the broadest sense.

Currently, Maemo is the only platform that fall into that category and that gives us a glimpse of what we can expect from our "phones" in the future: from the UI to its multitasking capabilities and the way you initiate a conversation on the device, Maemo is all about staying connected 24/7 through all the channels currently available to us. When you look at the videos of Maemo you clearly get the impression of watching a next-generation platform.

I also believe that Symbian, as a result of going open source and thus allowing/forcing them partially start over again from a clean slate, is in a position to shape their OS accordingly. But right now it is without any doubt Maemo that has taken the first step into the future of mobile computing.