When will my Smartphone be as smart as a fifth grader?

By Emeka Nwafor

Mobile mania is upon us.

In recent days, we've been introduced to the awesome looking Palm Pre. The Pre is Palm's attempt to share some of the spotlight with Apple's innovative and popular iPhone. Apple has had a big role to play in feeding the Mobile mania frenzy and it too was in the news this week. I have to acknowledge that I count myself amongst the multitudes that watched and waited in anticipation of The Big Announcement at this week's Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference where the Apple iPhone 3.0 was introduced. Since its first release, I have always admired the iPhone and its cousin the iPod Touch. I see the iPhone 3.0 at its pricepoint as being similar to a standing-up double in baseball; a great hit that puts them in scoring position, but it didn't bring the runner home. I was hoping for something different - more on this later in this post...

It seems like everyday I have some kind of conversation about the smartphones that are now close to the center of our lives. On the day of our big announcement, one of my Starbucks acquantances - Sherif - pulled me aside to tell me that as much as he loved his iPhone, he really wanted an iPhone that had a better lens on it and that can take better pictures. The other day one of our illustrious senior engineers (I have to say that since he develops stuff for my product division) was showing off his new HTC phone and rubbing his hands together in gleeful anticipation of writing an application for this platform. Today, I came across this great article by Steve Johnson that provides a view into how Intel is developing new Intel Atom microprocessors to power smartphones and mobile internet devices.

There are a number of elements that need to come together in harmony for our smartphones to meet our needs, including:

• low power devices that allow these devices we depend on to work with us through our waking hours
• rich platforms that address our needs around the convergence of the gagets that we use to capture and view pictures, capture and view video, play music, control our A/V equipment, or control the lighting in our homes
• killer applications that make our lives better, or at least more interesting

As a software guy, these are exciting times. Much of the "smarts" in these smartphones come from the software that powers the platforms that power these sleek devices. Without the software, our smartphone isn't so smart - they are really mostly just gadgets.

I often feel that many of the apps that we run on our handsets today are "clever" and more "superficially skillful" than "smart". There are clearly some great apps to help us manage our time, apps that help us communicate through Facebook and Twitter, data gathering apps, and stuff that could help me program my TV when I'm away (not yet available in Canada). There's also a bunch of apps that are great "party tricks" - I think of the cool little app for the iPhone/Touch that allows you to blow on the touch screen and puts mist on your picture or the one that reads MRI's.

But how smart is this software really? We have metrics that we can use to measure the popularity of an application - indicators like the number of downloads, application ratings, and the buzz in the forums help here. But have we really found a metric or an indicator that we can use to assess the quality of these applications with respect to their effectiveness in making our lives better? It might be out there and if it is, please let me know - I want to learn more about it.

I started thinking about the approaches be taken to developing applications for smartphones after seeing a recent tweet from David Pogue:

Yep, me too - I just want to TYPE IN "8:45".  The spin wheels is how it works on my Apple iPod Touch. I tried it out on my Blackberry - it too had a variation on the spin wheels. Both implementations seem to be patterned after the real alarm clock gadgets with those "modal >> | <<" buttons. I know these buttons well and get frustrated with them a couple of times a week when I have to adjust my wakeup time. You would think that a phone, especially a smartphone, would always require no more than 7 - maybe 8 - gestures to set ANY time. Wouldn't it be cool if I could just issue a voice command telling the phone to wake me up at 8:45am? And oh yeah, a Really Smartphone would also think to reprogram the coffee machine on its own - without me having to remind it.

I am nitpicking on the alarm clock since it is an application that most of us can relate to. The thing that excites me about the future of smartphones and Mobile Internet Devices are the possibilities that they create once some unconventional thinking and some hardwork are applied to developing capable and easy to use software on mobile device platforms. Once this is combined with a focus on simplicity of use, we'll be well on our way through this phase of the Technological Revolution. 

So here's what I was hoping for...

A slightly larger iPod Touch with a bigger screen and built-in stereo speakers that could sit on my night table with an easy programming interface to wake me up to one of my favorite tunes from my library. Maybe I could even jot down notes on it when an idea came into my head in the middle of the night (read: a tablet). When the device realized I was awake, it would then play all the tweets and e-mail that came through while I was sleeping.

Maybe for Christmas?

E

[You can follow me on Twitter - "enwafor"]

Comments

[Rob]

Interesting topic! This part got me thinking:

"Much of the 'smarts' in these smartphones come from the software that powers the platforms that power these sleek devices. Without the software, our smartphone isn't so smart - they are really mostly just gadgets."

I totally agree that the software is key, however I wonder in what direction does the software need to grow to become smarter?

I suspect that input assimilation and pattern recognition will be 2 of the key factors. Mobile devices will not only need to hypercommunicate with other gadgets to retrieve metadata about our lives but they will also need to make intelligent connections between the clues they gather.

For example, my mobile device may suggest I visit the dentist if I haven't been there recently. It could even conspire with my wireless weight scale to see if I'm gaining pounds. Then make alternate suggestions to me or via my partner's mobile device when grocery shopping

This will pose interesting technological challenges to facilitate hyper-communication in your gadget piconet while ensuring digital security. It will also be a challenge to know what information is relevant and how much computation analysis is really needed to determine valid correlations. How many sensors and input sources are enough?

[Emeka]

Rob, neat suggestions. I think the folks writing these applications will need to find that right balance between "anticipating our needs without being too intrusive in our lives". We might not be ready to give up control to our devices so a conspiracy between my phone and my scale might be a bit much. :-)

Today my car told be that I need to take it in for servicing in 5 days. The car also knew it was connected to my smartphone. With a bit more common sense, maybe it would have asked me if I wanted to call for an appointment. For extra marks, it might have looked at my calendar and then sent an email to the dealership suggesting some appointment times. So many possibilities... Exciting! :-)