Mobile Phones: 50 years on. What will disrupt them?

I had a full day in the city last week. I parked down at the station and ran for the train but as I was about to board, I realised that I didn't have my phone. Argh!

How would I finalise that looser meet up that evening?

How would I hotspot and send emails in between meetings?

How would I do a few sneaky lessons and stay on the Duolingo leaderboard? (I've turned out to be a sucker for gamification!)

How could I possibly spend a whole day without it?

I couldn't. I missed that train, ran back to the car and I started again once I had it safely ensconsed in my pocket.

This small, ingenious and indispensable device turns 50 this year.

Try Googling – or asking ChatCGT – about the 'invention of the Mobile Phone' and you read that Motorola engineer,?Martin Cooper?stood on sixth avenue in New York City on?April 3, 1973?and made the first call on a handheld?mobile?phone.

The first mobile phone was met with skepticism and fear. People were unsure about the concept of a portable phone and the potential privacy implications it could bring. It reminds me of the reaction to cars, trains...and AI today!

Fast forward to 2023, and we are hooked:

Mobile phones have become an integral part of the lives and it's not news that they have revolutionised the way we communicate, retain information (or not), read books, search for dating compatibilities, communicate with said date, listen to music, trade shares, purchase, use our wallet...it has disrupted traditional industries and created new ones.

It led to the decline of the landline and the emergence of mobile-based businesses such as ride-hailing and food delivery services. It has also changed the way we consume media and access information, with people of all ages turning to their mobile devices for news, social media, and online shopping. Coupled with other innovations, it has given us cheap, immediate access to loved ones and contacts around the world.

The list of drawbacks is also lengthy:

Smart phones are addictive and a dangerous distraction and lead to safety issues at work, at the wheel, for pedestrians...Their extraordinary capacity to house apps and games and work tools are also a very big drain on our time. I'm horrified by my average screen time!

They are also intrusive: we used to talk to each other on public transport not be subjected to half a conversation or a YouTube video on high volume. We also used to be able to turn off from the outside world when we got home - from school bullies, from work, from emails...and we could better control the content our more vulnerable children were consuming.

In terms of design, it has come a long way in the 50 years since its invention. What started as a bulky, expensive device primarily used for making calls has evolved into something compact and relatively affordable that slips into our pocket like mine did once I'd found it in the front of the car. Today, the average person carries with them a device that – we are often told – has more computing power than the NASA spacecraft that first landed on the moon. It's remarkable. It's regrettable. It's also like everything: it's replaceable...

So, what will replace or disrupt the mobile phone?

I once heard a memorable talk by futurist David Roberts?from?Singularity University, on disruption. It was not about the disruption of phones but was a story that took us from spices to fridges:

According to David, disruption for space traders came not from other spices or flavours but from ice. The spice trade industry, once one of the largest in the world, was disrupted by an American, Frederic Tudor, who invented the insulated warehouse. He worked out that if he stuck lots of straw between two boards then he could keep things cold. Within 20 years, the price of spice?plummeted?and the industry collapsed from its former glory. It was a slow-moving train wreck that no one saw coming.

Even though Tudor disrupted the once-booming spice business,?his?industry was also soon disrupted.?The?ice-maker?was created and that started being shipped.

"And as you can guess, said David, the ice-box gets disrupted by the?fridge, and none of the people in the ice-box business get into the fridge business.?So?the fridge?evolves?and we all end up with a fridge. But what will disrupt the fridge?" he asked. What indeed.

From one appliance to another

As someone who works with people to scan for blinkers or biases that might be masking more creative or resourceful ideas, when I think about how the phone will get disrupted, I wonder what fixednesses we still have with the phone. By fixedness I mean how are we stuck on the way we see the function, structure and dependencies of the phone.

When we created the first fridge, we got fixed on one possible configuration for nearly 100 years: the coldest part on the top. It took a workshop with my go to innovation method, Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) for GE to shake this up.

For the mobile phone, what cognitive fixednesses do we have? Are we stuck on the structure and can't see the parts? Possibly. Phone manufacturers have already applied a powerful fixedness buster that SIT calls 'Subtraction' whereby they removed components that seemed essential (like the keyboard, for example).

We have also broken functional fixedness –?where we get stuck on the function of a component and can't imagine giving it a new task: While earlier devices called on our fingers – and required the thumb – any modern smartphones are designed to be used with one hand and have features such as on-screen buttons that can be operated with other fingers, or voice commands that allow for hands-free use. Additionally, we have copied and changes some components – what a creative pattern SIT calls 'Multiplication' so that some devices such as flip phones or basic feature phones have larger physical buttons that can be operated with any finger.

Zooming out from the phone itself, we have given other resources the task of a phone. With wearables we have radically changed what we use as a phone. This is called 'Task Unification'. We haven't yet gone quite as far as Mel Brooks who gave Agent Maxwell Smart (played by Don Adams), a shoe phone!

It's difficult to predict exactly what invention will replace or disrupt the mobile phone, however, there are some obvious contenders that have the potential to shake things up further:

1. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) devices: AR and VR technology could replace the traditional screen-based mobile phone, offering a more immersive and interactive experience.
2. Wearable devices: Smartwatches, fitness trackers, and other wearable devices are becoming increasingly popular and have the potential to completely change the way we interact with technology.
3. Foldable devices: Foldable smartphones, laptops, and tablets are a and rapidly evolving technology that could become the future of mobile devices.
4. Artificial Intelligence (AI) personal assistants: AI-powered personal assistants such as Amazon's Alexa or Google Home could potentially take over some of the functions of the mobile phone, making it more of a specialised device for specific tasks.

I would suggest that those in the business - and folk in any other business - might play with other pattern-based tools to see what other ideas we might have missed! Cognitive fixedness is a bias that can blind us to better ideas that are hiding in plain sight.

What do you think will have the biggest impact on the way we design and use this device? What will disrupt the mobile phone?

#systematicinventivethinking #creativityhasacode #mobilephonesare50