This week’s post on MobileRnR is a guest written article by good friend of the site, Mark W Webster. Mark has spent a lifetime in tech, since the the day the Quartz watch came on the market in 1969. For ten years, he oversaw the English language version of Mobile-Review.com, and is now happily retired, offering his thoughts and opinions via the joys of social media as @MRMweb. Mark shares with us his look at mobile technology in 2011.
It’s that time of year again when we get all retrospective, dwelling on the high’s and low’s of 2010′s mobile devices. Some were great, some not so great, but what’s done is done, and like the bearded, mustachioed ghost of Christmas future, let me take you by the hand as we take a glimpse of what I think we have in store for 2011 in the mobile world.
Mobile World Congress is just around the corner, and it’s fair to say that we expect Nokia to finally pull the MeeGo rabbit out of the hat in the shape of the N9, but hold your horses, later in the year I expect two further MeeGo devices one of which will combine the imaging sensor of the N8, with a 5x internally folding optical zoom fashioned by Carl Zeiss. That particular device will supercede the N8 and rule unopposed as the photo-centric device of 2011/12.
Tablets! not the sort Rita stocks in her pharmacy [Editor note: good one], but the oversized phone variety will be the buzzword of next year, every manufacturer will have at least one 5 or 7-inch tablet out.
Palm will pull out of the mobile market and concentrate exclusively on putting the lovely WebOS on to the above mentioned tablet form factor.
Blackberry, we’ve had everything from them, qwerty’s, touchscreen’s, both combined – none of which has set the mobile world alight. I expect them to knock out more of the same, and just bumble along keeping fans of their in house BB Messenger service happy.
LG, 2011 will be their coming of age, I expect class-competitive Android beauties from them, rattling the likes of HTC and Samsung at the top end.
Samsung, will ditch their bastard son BADA and go all in with Android – they will also be the first to incorporate 1080p video capability in Q2 of next year.
Apple, the fourth iteration evolved into the well rounded complete device most of us had hoped for and the fifth iteration, like Santa, will appear annually at the allotted moment. Methinks next year’s revision will be somewhat conservative though. Here’s my bravest prediction, I think Apple will expand the iPhone range next year, introducing another low-mid tier device to combat the influx of low priced Android devices.
WP7, not really taken off has it? Windows Phone 7 will amble along in exactly the same fashion as its predecessors, no major impact for 2011.
Well, all that’s left is to thank Ricky and Rita for handing me the reins for this week, here’s wishing you all a happy holiday season and a wonderful new year! What do you think of my predictions? Do you see something different happening in 2011?
