It is not surprising that most of the smart phones that we see these days are of the same mold. While we see the occasional unique looking handsets like the Motorola Flipout and Backflip, the fact is that there has been no significant change in the layout of the smart phones we see today.
The trend is quite easy to spot. Thanks to the emergence of better touch screen technology, there has been more and more focus towards the use of capacitive touch screen displays that take up most of the front face of a modern smart phone. The addition of a keyboard or keypad usually comes in a slide out or flip-open format. Other handsets are designed somewhere in between these two types. While this is not a bad thing, eventually, the technology will move forward and these design will become archaic.
So where does the trend move to now? There are some who are talking about having a dynamic camera which can be made to tilt forward or back depending on the user’s need -which helps eliminate the whole back and front facing camera as well as the awkward feeling of waving a handset around a like a lunatic when using an augmented reality app.
There are also talks about checking the keyboard into a full touch screen display with haptic feedback as well. This would give a smart phone two screens –with the other serving as a secondary input device. However, since haptic technology is still in the early stages of being able to simulate the real feedback of buttons, many might find the transition from physical keyboard to another virtual keyboard (which does sound quite redundant), to be an unwelcome prospect.
While 3D is fast becoming the new in-thing for video playback, the technology is seeing less use in mobile devices. Despite advances in parallax technology which would enable 3D without the glasses, there is more importance in providing better touch screen performance.
