JK's Mobile Tech Predictions for 2008

The end of 2007 is nigh and we geeks are casting our eyes to the future to figure out what mobile goodness might be coming our way in 2008.  You should take these with a grain of salt as we can never be certain about such things but here are my mobile tech predictions for 2008.  Read on if you want to get my take on what next year might bring with phones, MP3 players, notebooks, UMPCs, and Tablet PCs.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned the Google Android under the smartphone predictions so I've added it now.

Smartphones.  Apple reinvented the smartphone market in 2007 and will continue to steal market share from the big guys, Windows Mobile and Symbian.  We should see an iPhone with 3G added in 2008 which will start grabbing the geeks who have held off so far.  The rumors are that Apple will be announcing the sale of the 5 millionth iPhone early next year and while that may be a bit inflated there is no doubt that Cupertino has brought smartphone technology to the mainstream consumer who never cared for it before.  Expect Apple to continue to ride the wave of the iPhone as international sales ramp up and US sales continue into 2008.  HTC will continue to be the prolific producer of innovative Windows Mobile smartphones and PDAs and since they have already begun a mainstream marketing campaign in the US late this year we should start seeing their devices appear in the hands of the non-geek mainstream next year.  This will have the biggest impact in the Windows Mobile space than any other factor in 2008.  Next year will see the first handsets released by HTC and others running the Google Android OS. This will make a big splash in the news but not really have an impact on the mainstream. Geeks will snap them up but no one else will.

Music players.  Apple will continue to dominate the portable music player stage with iPods continuing to be sold right and left. The iPod Touch will become a huge seller in 2008 as mainstream consumers get exposed to TV ads worldwide.  Apple will start to get competition from deals for DRM-less music that will be rolled out by big record labels.  The only serious competition to the iPod is the electronic music download that you own, i. e. without DRM.  Because of this competition we may see Apple do something major in this area if they have enough clout to hit the big labels over the head in 2008. Zunes will continue to enjoy good sales as the subscription plan gets more traction in the marketplace.

Notebook computers.  Next year will be the year of Linux as Dell, Lenovo and others begin shipping Linux as a preconfigured option.  The Asus EEE PC and the OLPC have shown the OEMs how consumers are willing to give up some horsepower for a notebook that runs Linux and that can be had for less than some smartphones.  This will continue and we should see some other OEMs enter into this mainstream market segment.  If we see some major advertising in this area it will explode in 2008.  Apple should introduce a 13-inch MacBook Pro early next year but I don't think that alone will create big sales for them.  The sub-notebook needs to have some extra technology to create buzz but I think it will just be the 15-inch MBP shrunk to 13 inches.  Notebook sales will continue at a higher pace than desktops as consumers vote with their wallets that they want plug and play.  Major OEMs like Dell and HP will continue to introduce notebooks aimed at consumers and prices will continue to drop dramatically.  Now that Lenovo is done with their transition from IBM with the ThinkPad we will see some strides from them in the consumer space.  Notebooks will be the biggest sales sector in the PC market in 2008 easily.

UMPCs. This will continue to be a very unclear genre in 2008.  The term has been applied to everything from the Vista-running Origami class devices to Linux notebooks and PDAs and that confusion will continue to keep the OEMs from focusing on a clear ultra-mobile PC.  In the Origami camp I expect we will continue to see devices that are considerable smaller than the 7-inch original reference design and this will prevent mainstream adoption as these devices will virtually all have keyboards that are too small to be genuinely useful.  We can expect to see more devices emerge with sub-5-inch displays that strive for ultra-portability but still are not pocketable, something that mainstream consumers will likely expect.  We'll start to see Intel MIDs appear that will be cheaper and more battery-friendly than current devices which will be a welcome addition.  Dell's addition of a capacitive digitizer such as that found in the iPhone could have a big impact in the UMPC space if OEMs start producing UMPCs with multi-touch ability.  That could be a game changer in the UMPC space and will be great to see if that happens in 2008.  Otherwise UMPCs running Windows will continue to be the fodder for geeks and mainstream consumers will stay away in the same numbers they stayed away in 2007.  We may see a major OEM introduce a device in 2008 with a new usage technology that shakes up this genre.  No, it won't be Apple with a Newton device.  I hope I am wrong about this but I do not believe Apple will introduce a mini-Tablet as has been rumored recently.  I believe that Apple is already spread too thin with their current varied product line and a new device like a Tablet would stretch them to the breaking point.  If they did introduce something like this it would really knock the genre for a loop.  Solid state disks (SSDs) will continue to appear in mobile PCs and will have a tremendous impact on battery life and performance but will remain too expensive to appeal to mainstream consumers as the devices that contain them will be too expensive.

Tablet PCs.  Dell's introduction of the XT Tablet PC with the capacitive digitizer is the first innovation we've seen in this arena in a long time and unless they come up with a totally new use for that technology it might not make a splash at all.  Other OEMs will not follow suit unless they have a compelling reason to do so and I can't envision what that usage might be so I don't expect that to happen in 2008.  I expect next year to be more of the same in this space with the exception that some of the major Tablet makers will start trying to sell them to consumers for the first time.  This could be a very good thing as to date all Tablet PCs have been pretty much aimed at the enterprise but if consumers are targeted we could see sales ramp up. The convertible form factor with keyboards and swivel screens will continue to be the norm for Tablet PCs with fewer pure slates produced.

So there you have my predictions for mobile tech in 2008 in the major areas of interest.  Unfortunately we will not see any new battery technology go into production so the hardware will continue to be performance throttled to get battery life where consumers need it to be.  It will be an interesting year as no one can predict the impact that Linux will have in the portable computing space, something I believe will have a tremendous impact as consumers realize they can do almost everything they do on a computer now on a Linux-based ultra-portable that costs less than $500.

Comments

[Woadan]

James, we'll get back with ya near the end of 2008 to see how it all really turns out.

Thank you for all the "work" you and Kevin do hear at jkOnTheRun. It'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

Woadan

[Scoobie]

My prediction is the major manuacturers won't give up on the UMPC as it has potential to be a new major segment in electronics in the long term.
I think 2008 will be about MIDs and portable email, 3G on the go.
I think UMPCs will start taking on the Blackberry, as they offer real potential to Executives to read documents out of the office.
My riskier prediction is Sony will replace the UX this year, and HP will launch a UMPC model at CES.

[Keith]

No mention of Android in the smartphone section? With HTC bringing out the first device(s) in the fall, I think the announcement/leaks of said device in the summer may end up be a small shockwave through the smartphone industry.

[James Kendrick]

Keith, you're right and I've added a mention of the Android.

[JC]

Why is DRM-free music downloads competition for the iPod? All DRM-free music services work perfectly well on the iPod. (Hey, I have over 80Gb of legal, DRM-free music on my iPod classic.) It's hardly an either-or proposition.

The iPod is not the Kindle. Without the iTunes Music Store, there are lots of other convenient, legal ways of getting content onto your iPod. As more DRM-free outlets pop up, there will be even more iPod compatible places to get legal content. This hardly sounds like a problem.

If we believe Apple, the average iPod user has very few iTMS tracks on his iPod. This leads me to think that DRM, ultimately, has very little to do with the iPod's success. Good industrial design, OTOH, has lots to do with it.

[Gary]

The eee PC shows that consumers are not interested in expensive cutting edge computers with innovative case designs (for want of a better phrase). They basically want cheap products and the eee delivers in a small yet conforming clamshell notebook design. That's why "UMPCs" aren't cutting it in my view.

I overheard a salesman, who didn't have any stock of the eee, arguing with a customer about why she should buy an ordinary laptop. The best he could do was AUD1,000, to which the response was: "But that's double the price of the eee".

I think that other manufacturers will take note and design their own cheap eee counterpart. Emphasis on cheap. Also, probably emphasis on conforming clamshell form factor.

[Montevale]

1. Portable GPS units get capacitive touch screens and become the new umpcs.
2. iPod will dominate even further with iPhone and iTouch getting to the same capacity as their spinning discs couunterparts. Everyone will also want to have a Zune but those will be in short supply. Sansa players all of a suddent get noticed by the public.
3. Full size Tablet Pcs will continue seeing improvements only in vertical markets. The definition of a tablet will be completely blurred by the amount of new UMPCs.
4. Penryn - phones with a power of Pentium M and more. Real voice applications for the phones.
5. Nintendo DS lite gets a v2 upgrade and continues do dominate the portable gaming platform. Everyone still wants to buy Wii but thinks PS3 is the best and continues to play Halo on the Xbox.
6. Blue Ray becomes the standard, no one cares.
7. First affordable laptops that last over eight hours on a single battery charge.
8. Electric Car still a thing of the future.
9. WiMax blows out our perspective of what connected devices can do.
10. Google stock hits $1000