The Day Qualcomm Foretold a Post-Phone Era of Smart Experiences

Moving the Human Factor to the Foreground: The Person, Not the Gadget

At the Snapdragon Summit in Maui, the head of mobile computing at Qualcomm, Alex Katouzian, stated that although the phones of today will not disappear, there will be a big change in the user experience. He sees a future in which the user is at the center of the universe, not the mobile phone.

"The world is smartphone-centric at the moment... as AI changes the user interface... the experience will be with the human and the assistant - not the device," he told The Indian Express.

Not Just Phone but Smart Ecosystem: Devices That Serve Your Needs

Katouzian came up with the picture of many devices: besides wearable, glasses, a "puck" in your pocket may also be the one to do the work that is normally done by smartphone. Thus, a phone is only one part of the AI network.

He referred to the present situation where a phone is handling the tasks for the connected devices such as smart glasses. But in his dream, those gadgets will be competent enough to do the work by themselves - with the AI assistant built in them.

Qualcomm Makes a Bet: The Spotlight on Wearables

Qualcomm seems to be already in that future with one leg: its Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip powers Meta’s Ray-Ban Stories. The latter allows you to see messages, get captions, and also be part of calls — all with a supporting neural wristband.

Katouzian finds that this trend may be scaled: several AR1 derivative models with different prices might push the general public to adopt the use of wearable AI as it happened with smartphones.

Transition Phase, Not End

He warned that a smartphone apocalypse is not what is coming. Phones will continue to play a role during the transition phase - as anchors. However, the way you interact with them will be different.

"The glasses just pose the question but the computer in your pocket is the one doing the work. But in the very near future it will be the glasses themselves that take over the task. This is really the change I think people should be prepared to see."

Rethinking the Whole Tech Industry & You

This change in orientation affects deeply:

● Developers of applications should envision UI/UX that is device-agnostic rather than only phone-oriented.

● One of the hardware makers could point out the benefits of modularity and distributed computing.

● Consumers may turn at some point to AI wearables as their main tools.

● The issues of privacy and security will become even more important in a world with multiple devices.

While Qualcomm is putting its bet on, the time of device-centric design could slowly be replaced by an era of person-centric computing.