Having watched and read all about CES that happened two weeks ago, I think only two things really stayed in my mind. First thing is Android. Android was everywhere @CES, every manufacturer it seemed had at least one device running with Android. There is no question about that Android will be the OS of the future. We will find it on mobile phones, tablets, cars, tvs, fridges probably it will be on every device a screen makes sense (or even, where it doesn’t make sense). In my opinion, Android will truly lead to a new innovation decade where all devices will be connected through Android (and the cloud). Apple, still in the lead with it’s usability and overall unified experience will slowly decline in its importance of being the dictator of a connected world.
That brings me to the second and more important memory of CES, Motorola Atrix. Motorola showed of its dual core powered smart phone, running on Android of course, that was not only a smartphone, but your personal mobile computer. First you have all the features you would expect from a (really powerful) Android smartphone, secondly, you get a personal computer you can connect to your TV (using a docking station) and watch videos, browse the web., etc. If you need to do some work, you just plug it into your (Motorola) Notebook, that has a docking station as well, and it will be powered by your phone and you can do the real work, like writing emails, docs on there. It all comes with a seemless experince, what Motorola calls Webtop. If you start browsing to a webpage and unplug it, it will continue to load next time you plug it in elsewhere, or on the phone itself. Last but not least, you even get a media experience with a remote control, so you can simply control your phone from the couch and watch the snowboard videos, you have just taken.
I think Motorola just showed off, what everyone would have expected to be shown by Apple, a seamless personal computing experience. In the upcoming year we will see more manufacturers and individual start ups coming up with a similar experience. HP is probably showing a similar thing on the WebOS even in February, and Samsung is working in the direction as well and I think Samsung can lead the way as it is THE entertainment hardware manufacturer. Samsung already has great Internet connected TVs, blue ray players, awesome smartphones and tablets (Galaxy), so if it plays the game well, it will have a significant advantage over the competition. (Guess you could say that from LG as well, but their smartphones lacked a bit behind until the upcoming Optimus 2x).
The big challenge now is in the hands of Google. It needs to get all the ideas of Motorola, Samsung …. that come up during the next year(s) and try to build standard (communication) APIs right into the Android OS, or even build this ‘WebTop’ experience itself, so my Samsung smartphone will work on Audi’s panel, talk to my XYZ fridge and TV. I remember seeing a Microsoft video, that kind of showed off this experience, if I remember right it was around the introduction of Vista, another good example of Microsoft having ideas but not being able to execute it.
I can see myself in 15 years from now coming home, plugging my personal computing device (smartphone) into the docking station at the entrance door and my flat will come alive. If someones calling me, I can choose to take the call at the fridge, at the TV or any of the tablets lying around. All can be controlled by a button press, all my data is in the cloud, accessible everywhere. Internet and cloud services will be a commodity like electricity nowadays.
Unfortunately advertising will be all over the place and privacy concerns will loose out against convenience.