The beginning of the end of smartphones

No one questions the utility of smartphones, and everyone has a general sense of what they can do. This is because 6 billion people now own and use smartphones on a day-to-day basis. But don’t let the fact that Apple releases a “new” iPhone every year fool you. Each new version just incrementally improves on the previous. Every year the iPhone gets a slightly upgraded chip, screen, camera, and form-factor - but there is no 10x leap in capabilities that fundamentally change how we interact with our devices. This is why the smartphone is a legacy technology.

The smartphone paradigm is set, and so are the mental models and design patterns within it. Everyone knows what it means to “unlock your device”, “download an app”, and “silence notifications”. Significant changes to mental models and design patterns are not permitted since users have become accustomed to them over the years. This limits your freedom as a product designer.

Also, the design space has been thoroughly explored by Apple - designing iOS and its native apps - and the thousands of third-party developers who have launched apps on the App Store. This is not to say that new products cannot be built on the iPhone. I imagine many new apps launch daily and some might generate significant revenue. My point is that since the smartphone paradigm is so well understood, and we’re so used to the products built on it, new mobile apps won’t fundamentally surprise us in what they can do.

Building mobile apps is easier than building products on more novel technologies, because smartphone infrastructure is fully mature. There are plenty of resources for learning about mobile app design, and developer frameworks for building mobile apps are stable. Also, think of all the designers and developers with mobile app experience. The talent pool is deep, which makes it easier to form a team. This also means that mobile app design is no longer a skill you can differentiate yourself with. Back in 2010 it was, but now a knowledge of mobile app design is required just to stay relevant.

Legacy technologies eventually get phased out by growth and novel technologies. The smartphone will soon be completely reimagined, catalyzed by the rise in AI Pins and spatial devices. These novel technologies will be 10x more seamless and immersive than current smartphones, and they will fundamentally change how we interact with devices. Right now we mostly use GUIs to interact with our smartphones, but AI Pins will shift us into a voice-first paradigm and spatial devices can also leverage gestures and eye movement. Designers working on next-gen devices will get to develop mental models and design patterns from scratch to fit this new paradigm.