64% of the world – We are connected!

Let’s imagine a kilogram of weight in our pocket, I tried it and it felt extremely awkward. That was the approximate weight of the first wireless mobile phone developed on 3^rd April 1973, but the positives were that it built a massive platform to open several avenues in massive mobile technology enhancements to always stay wirelessly connected to people around the globe. Today, we have approximately 64% of the world using mobile phones for several purposes, right from the basic usage of making calls to constantly monitoring your heart rate. The mobile phone has become an extremely integral part of our lives, so much so that I am a Nomophobic, and weirdly don’t mind it at all.

Reminiscing the time when pixelated black text on a 96 by 65 pixel screen with a green back-light that alternately worked as a lethal attacking device or for some as a device that enhanced their sexual desire due to its unnecessarily high vibrations that notified an incoming call or a message. Major changes in technology have enabled us now to answer a call without physically answering it. The perpetual need of a mobile phone have led to several brands venturing into this market, with Nokia, Alcatel Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Apple, Motorola, Blackberry, Xiaomi among others changing hands in dominating the mobile phone markets in various countries. Technology development in the mobile industry has been extremely quick, a company like blackberry that once managed to sell 15 million handsets and a must have device for most mobile users in one quarter of 2009 to becoming a social joke just 4 years later.

The cannibalistic war for the top spot is always on, and this is not restricted to only the companies that produce these products but for most consumers as well. Every consumer has a set perspective and belief of their device he/she owns. For me as a consumer and a technology buff with a strong opinion, I would blatantly state that I'm a huge Nokia/Windows Phone believer. With phones like the HTC one, Samsung S5 and the Nexus series, it’s hard to hold my ground and in spite of all the major competition I foresee Windows Phones to dominate the market again, with its mobile-first, cloud-first strategy among other major developments, over the next couple of years. Some might point out that I have left out the unintentional flexible screened IPhone 6 and IPhone 6 plus, the reason being from my point of view, apple have started focusing way too much on the design and less on the functionality on their devices.

Getting in and getting out of the hardware phone market is an extremely difficult task, but Google managed this well. Google faced a lot of criticism due to its more than $9.5 billion loss while changing hands from Motorola to Lenovo, but many people ignored the fact that Google managed to earn approximately 17,000 patents, 7,500 applications, a large cash pile and a large amount in deferred tax assets from Motorola and with technology moving faster than light, patents possibly hold way more future value than running a hardware mobile business. This has just helped in increasing the patents battle between Microsoft, Apple, Samsung and Google.

What can we expect from our mobile phones in the future? Surely not just a champagne coloured phone with minor performance improvements. We are surely looking at concepts like modular phones by phonebloks, intentionally flexible screen phones by Samsung, transparent phones by polytron technologies among many others. Sorry Ethan Hunt and Tony Stark, we are catching up faster than expected.