Where mobile technology is heading, from 2011 to 2020

It’s been barely four years since Apple’s iPhone changed the expectation of what a smartphone should be and inspired a trend that will deeply affect many companies’ technology and business operations. In fact, it already has. And in just the last two years, every major smartphone platform has undergone significant change in response, adapting to the iPhone example and adding unique value on top of that. I expect the pace of change to remain swift, and for the mobile momentum to be as strong and as far-reaching as the PC and Internet revolutions provided to be.

In 2010, we saw three significant developments that set the stage for the mobile revolution to start. With that base established, the real potential can begin So, here are my predictions for the key mobile developments over the next decade. The future rarely unfolds as anyone predicts, but I believe that, directionally at least, here’s what you should prepare for. And for a great analysis on where mobile technology is heading and its implications on IT and business strategy, check out this new PwC PDF report on mobile computing.

2011: The slate device, as pioneered by the iPad, will rapidly gain adoption as a new type of device for information consumers and on-the-go transactors, as Android and perhaps other operating systems are adapted for them. Unlike the netbook, their use and capabilities will only grow, eventually replacing laptops for lightweight uses and beginning to make videoconferencing a common activity.

2011: Mobile management tools will handle most if not all the major smartphone platforms, giving IT the necessary assurance over security and compliance at an acceptable level of overhead.

2011: Apple and Google, at least, will provide desktop-equivalent browsers for their mobile platforms, so iPads, iPhones, and Androids can be equally functional on the Web as Macs and PCs are.

2012: The major mobile platform makers will deploy APIs for tapping into sensor data and sensor controls, some in competition with each other and some as joint private standards; they will also ask W3C to consider them as formal extensions to HTML5.

2013: Touch-based user interfaces become more sophisticated, adding motion in 3D space as additional context for user interactions (the “shake” control in an iPhone today is a primitive example of the 3D gestures I expect to see). 3D displays will become available as well.

2013: Mobile wallet technology, initially using screen-presented bar codes as now used for airline boarding, will become standard in smartphones and transaction terminals. The new Android OS 2.3 “Gingerbread” released in December 2010 gives a hint of what is to come.

2014: Voice recognition and transcription technology will run capably on current mobile hardware, providing hands-free control over mobile devices in a broad range of applications. Use of signal-canceling multiple microphones, as well as broad use of headsets, will address the issues of multiple speakers in a room confusing the voice recognition and distracting other people.

2014: The HTML5 specification gains formal approval, even though draft versions have been in widespread use since 2009. The mobile industry’s proposed sensor extensions remain in the standards review process.

2014: Smartphones and iPad-style slates surpass laptops as users’ primary computing device away from home or the office. In many homes and businesses, traditional PCs will be used by just a few power users, with slates and perhaps cloud-connected laptops being the common computers.

2015: High-speed nearfield networking — perhaps a flavor of Bluetooth or the nearly forgotten UWB — will be commonplace in devices beyond computers and computer peripherals, enabling mobile devices to be information and control hubs for a wide range of electronics, from TVs to jogging trackers, from patient monitors to factory equipment. This capability, plus the wide availability of 200GB-plus solid state memory modules that fit in mobile devices, also allows mobile devices to replace most desktop PCs with nearfield-equipped monitors and input peripherals. Mobile devices will dock to monitors, storage, networks, input devices, and so forth automatically. You’ll have just one computer — the one in your pocket — but it will be able to adapt into more than a smartphone when the right peripherals are around

2016: Environmental sensors-on-a-chip become cost-effective, allowing temperature, chemical, and other environmental measurements to be taken on consumer-grade mobile devices, opening up new medical and industrial uses.

2017: Deployments of LTE and better “4G” cellular technology penetrate most North American urban and suburban centers, increasing available bandwidth for mobile devices and thus accessibility of Web-based and cloud-based services. Ubiquitous computing starts to get real.

2020: Miniaturization and image-projection technologies, coupled with previous 3D gesture technologies, allow mobile devices to be wearable components that combine wirelessly with each other and other nearby devices to provide a less obtrusive mobile computing environment.

It’s going to be a great wave to ride!

This article, “Where mobile technology is heading, from 2011 to 2020,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Mobile Edge blog and follow the latest developments in mobile technology at InfoWorld.com.