What To Expect In 2010 From Your Smartphone

From a consumers point of view, we are all in for a treat when it comes to our Smartphones this year. The competition is fierce between the cell phone manufacturers and when corporations are forced to compete, we the consumer win every time. Let’s take a look into the crystal ball and see some of the things in store for us geeks this year.

HD TV on your cell phone

What! How can this be enjoyable when the screens are so small? One of the things you can be sure of is the screen sizes are going to expand. It’s already happening with the HTC HD2 that has a “4.3 screen, is widely available in Europe, and is expected to reach T-Mobile shelves by the end of Q1 of this year. Although the HD2 tag is a little misleading because it technically isn’t high definition, HD output is already here with the Samsung Instinct HD . Take a look at the new processors coming out (Snapdragon 1GHz, Tegra 2) and in the specs you will see 720p and 1080p video and playback support.

4G via Wimax and LTE (Long Term Evolution)

That’s right this is finally the year for 4G to become prevalent in the US. Sprint, jumped the gun in 2009 with their Wimax launch in select cities but it was only available for Aircards. This year we are bracing to see the speculated 4G Android phone from Sprint that supports Wimax in the form of the HTC Supersonic. AT&T and Verizon are now biting on their heals and gearing up to release their 4G LTE service before the end of the year. Think of the possibilities. Streaming high definition TV to your cell phone without the missed frames and lag that we experience now. Better yet a select few Smartphones already support TV out (Seeing your cell phone display on you‘re TV) and they support it well. By now you might be able to see where this is going and yes the cable companies are taking notice. Cox the cable provider is testing LTE voice over data calls as you read this. More TV’s are Bluetooth compatible as well. Imagine tethering you’re Smartphone over Bluetooth to you’re television.

Watch you’re conversation

Video conferencing will become the norm with the faster data speeds and voice over data available. Actually the technology for this has been around for the last couple of years but the applications are highly data intensive and have not been fast enough to do it well. That will change in 2010.

Twice the speed

To keep up with the Definition TV and the boost in data speeds the processor chips are in need of a major upgrade. Most 2009 Smartphones featured around 500GHz processing power which gave us a laggy and often frustrating user experience. When you click on an application, it can take seconds to open and when multitasking can take even longer. With 1GHz processors coming like the one that the LG Expo has currently available, gone are the days of watching the waiting curser while wondering if the app you opened is going to crash your phone. Getting excited yet?

Voice Navigation

That dreaded or long awaited bill (depending on your opinion) has been approved by Congress and is now being reviewed in the senate to prohibit handling your cell phone while driving be it making a call or texting. Speech to text is available with most OS platforms already, but it’s difficult to use and not very accurate. Google is improving the accuracy of speech to text and voice navigation with their Android platform. Soon the ability to say what you want to text, who you want to call, and what app you would like to open, will become more usable and widely available.

Intergraded Cloud Based Apps

Why use up your Smartphone's program and storage memory when opening a new app. Cloud based Apps can run on your Smartphone but be stored on the internet. Google intends make an Operating System base mostly on the “cloud computing”. Already available for the Iphone is a cloud based service called

Some footnotes:

Windows Mobile7 to ship on cell phones by Q4 2010

With Windows 7 already a success Microsoft turned their attention to the mobile OS which in their words “will be revolutionary”.

A 4th Generation Iphone

It’s official the Android and Blackberry’s of the world are starting to eat away at the Apple empire. Expect Apple to respond accordingly.

Possible 3D displays on you’re Smartphone

It needs a lot of work as of now and “after the novelty wears off it becomes tiring” but us citizens of the United States love our novelties and the manufacturers know this.

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