Smartphones have become central to the lifestyles of the majority of the population of the industrialised world – and in such a short time.
It is only 10 years since Apple sold the first iPhone, the product that ignited demand for a device that has become ubiquitous and has changed the way people communicate, create, access information, record and share data, make photography and video, consume news and entertainment and much, much more.
The smartphone is the most important mainstream product in recent history. A powerful handheld computer, it has given us instant access to the internet's gigantic cache of knowledge and data. It has enhanced, expanded and facilitated democratic participation – from constructive and innovative to vile.
Refreshingly, it can save us from pointless disputes, and thus has lifted the quality of countless social encounters, for there is no longer any excuse to dispute facts – they can be ascertained instantly. This leaves far more room for debates about things really worth arguing about – ideas and football, for example.
A year ago, the total number of iPhones sold surpassed a billion. But the smartphone market is far larger than that. By next year, there will be an estimated 2.53 billion smartphone users in the world, about one in three people. In the industrialised world, as many as nine in 10 people have one, and they are, "like, totally crucial" in the lives of the overwhelming majority of young people.
There is little point in arguing whether such widespread use of mobile computing and communications technology is good or bad. That is primarily up to individuals. In the coming decade, smartphones will be at the forefront of humanity's efforts to achieve a balance between the benefits of this technology and the ethical and security challenges of data collection and of artificial intelligence. Biometric interfaces will continue to proliferate.
Regulators will need to be agile. The issues are important, and consumers need appropriate civil and commercial protections, including ready control over whether and how personal data is shared.
Successfully traversing these issues will require informed public debate, wise lawmaking and corporate responsibility. Whether that transpires is uncertain.
What appears probable is handheld computers' role in our lives is crossing a frontier; we will interact with them in evermore personal ways, as their ability to simulate consciousness accelerates amid an expanding universe of data.
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