I’m not even confident that whatever version of bluetooth we have 10 years from now will get my headphones to connect reliably.
There is also the antenna, the size of which is constrained by physics. See, for instance the size of a 5G antenna. 5G phones will have up to four of those to deal with signal loss, because
Remote displays certainly work. I can cast my laptop or iPhone screen to my home theatre projector at 1080p resolution over WiFi and it works perfectly happily. Indeed I use it watch movies stored on my iPhone that way. 4k displays are harder, but not vastly so. There is compression involved in the stream, so there are some compromises. But for the needs of wearables, there is no intrinsic limitation.
I’ve an S4 mini. So I’m way behind the curve I suppose.
I have no desire for a larger phone or larger screen. Don’t watch video on my phone. Never plan to. Very occasional look at the internet on the phone or want to.
I can make phone calls (go figure) email, text and read books. Oh and I use it as an alarm and timer for cooking. The camera is fine.
But I know I will have to pull the trigger and get a new one. The major thing holding me back is I do not want something bigger.
Fair enough. My point fundamentally was that smartphones of the future will have a wide range of ways you can interact with them rather than just the built in touch screen and built in microphone we use now.
The thing about this is that there are only software additions needed to make existing phones talk to the new peripherals. Some interesting devices may benefit from significant processing grunt, but as a driver to obsolete current phones such new devices won’t likely drive the market.
Also, Palm is back and selling a pet phone for your phone.
At a trade show I went to a looong time ago, one booth had a directional sound demo. If you stood on one spot you could hear music, move a foot or so away and nothing. (The sound was directed somewhat downward so you couldn’t really move closer or farther to test what happened with those.)
It was quite eerie. So it’s been around a while but I don’t know if anyone is using stuff like this.
It uses a flat panel of micro speakers. So there’s some size there. To have something like this on a phone would be impractical unless you’re willing to give up a good chunk of screen size.
OTOH, since the system is dynamic, the phone camera could track you and direct the sound to wherever you were relative to the phone. (And to the person standing behind you! :))
Lucky you. My phone wasn’t as popular as yours, and I couldn’t buy a new battery from third parties, nor would the manufacturer replace it. I would have been happy keeping my old phone but for the battery dying. 
yup
I think if they improve the batteries enough, there will be more small phones on the market. Especially if they improve the battery and also develop a (foldable/rollable/stretchable) larger screen that can be unfurled when desired.
One company that does this (directional audio) is Brown Innovations. They sold the sound dome thing to music retailers, so only the person standing beneath the dome could hear the music.
Yep, this is sort of what I’m waiting for. Though I have no need for a bigger screen.
The Apple iWatch sort of tried with the smaller size, but frankly, I think it’s ridiculous. Why wear another device on your wrist that is connected to your phone? Perhaps I misunderstand the tech.
Sort of like when people where wearing Blue tooth hearing buds in their ears where ever they went so they could look like an android that talks to itself.
Myself, I’m in GIS, so am no stranger to new technologies. But sometimes you have to just say. “Um… No.”
As for adapting it to phones, I don’t know if the physics of it would allow it to scale properly, but there will soon be phones (and televisions) where the screen is the speaker.
The new technique doesn’t use any speakers, just a laser and a rotating mirror. Here’s an article on it.
I got that. But try adapting it to something like smart phone world.
A hijack, if I may. Could this technology not be used ‘in reverse’ to eavesdrop on a unsuspecting target? (And, possibly even through, say, a window pane?)
For a window pane, you’re probably better off with a laser microphone. And for general remote listening, a parabolic microphone will do the trick.
That said–yes, microphone arrays are a thing. In fact, the Amazon Echo devices (and probably similar devices) already use them for noise isolation–they can listen clearly to an individual speaker even when there are other noise sources in the room. Mine show me a little LED indicator in the direction I’m standing in.