The amount of technological news that comes out every day makes us perhaps to distract from something approaching in leaps and bounds and that it will forever change the landscape of consumer electronics. It won’t be tomorrow, or next year, but a great revolution is coming. Nokia, in fact, expects mobile phones to disappear in less than ten years. Given this, it is attached to the same technology as Apple.
We’ve been hearing about virtual reality glasses for quite some time. A lot of time. So much so that, not only do we take them a little for granted, but, having seen the technology, we know they are “only for games”. Truth? Well, nothing could be further from the Reality —if you allow me the pun—.
A radical change in less than a decade
We’re fast approaching 2023, knowing there could be an Apple Super Event in January, much more calmly than we approach the launch of the original iPhone. Back then, the tech press was running from place to place reporting news and predicting what might happen. Now, we are on the verge of a huge change and there doesn’t seem to be much interest.
Granted, Facebook, now called Meta for its metaverse, doesn’t help. He may have popularized the term, but it is not an easy term to understand, as Tim Cook has commented on more than one occasion. It is also true that, although the virtual reality glasses that exist today, the apps that have been developed for them are not all they could.
But some are clear. As they tell us at Xataka, Nokia’s chief strategy and technology officer, Nishant Batra, ensured that mobile phones will disappear in this decade in an interview with The Spokesman. Does the iPhone mean nothing in 2032? That’s what it means, and the truth is that the predictions can very well go down the right path.
Nokia thinks the metaverse is the future. According to Bartra, “we believe smartphones will be overtaken by the metaverse experience in the second half of the decade.” And before that, they shift their efforts in that direction. They didn’t give details about it, but the address is the same as the one pointed to by Apple.
Whether we are talking about Reality One or Reality Pro, whether we are talking about rOS, realityOS or xrOS —in reference to extended reality—, the individual screens may become obsolete very soon. Who would want a Mac if we could put on glasses – headsets in its early iterations – and have the screen we want with just a keyboard and mouse. Who will want a TV if we go to the cinema with glasses?
Would anyone want an iPhone if they could have any app in front of them in the blink of an eye? Statements like this no doubt generate some controversy. And it’s too early to predict how the technology will evolve. What we can be clear about is that Apple will hit the table with its new extended reality productwhatever its name, and that much of what we take for granted today will make much less sense.
Will it be in 3 years? Will it be in 6? At Nokia, they think it will be in less than 10 years. More … than long time for other technologies to successfully take off. Let’s remember the original iPhone and its evolution to iPhone 4, which we consider a benchmark, or the original Apple Watch and its evolution to Apple Watch Series 5, for example. On the contrary, it is clear that much of the industry is pivoting. And we may have a surprise sooner rather than later.
