Every year, the world’s biggest technology companies promise to deliver innovation they say will change our daily lives forever. And every year, as journalists covering this beat— some of whom have access to the latest devices each week—we are acutely aware that these promises are often unfulfilled. And 2022 was no different. Of course, we had some big expectations. But as always, there was a gap between what we expected and what we got.
Here’s a look at some of those ideas and wishes that didn’t come to light.
What we wanted in our smartphones: Design innovation
What we got: ‘Colour-changing’ material
This one is obvious, and we have been saying this on repeat for nearly two years. Smartphone designs are just boring these days. It is that same flat display—sometimes there is a curved one—a camera island that is huge and a ‘unique’ colour that almost every other brand appears to have. In fact, ‘colour-changing’ backs were all that we got in the name of design innovation. Ground-breaking? We would say not.
The Nothing phone (1) was one that offered a new design. (Image source: Express Photo)But one company tried to shake things up this year. That was Carl Pei’s Nothing with its Phone (1). The Nothing Phone (1) stood out in the market—though some pointed out that it reminded you of a futuristic iPhone—given the unique design of the back cover with its Glyph interface made of LED lights. It was not a perfect phone, but it at least had something different to offer from what we typically see. Will brands take note in 2023 and give us designs that make us go wow? I am not holding my breath.
What we wanted in our smartphones: Better battery technology
What we got: Faster chargers
Let’s face it, battery technology has not evolved on most smartphones in the past five or so years. And I am not talking about the size of the battery itself. If you have been using a smartphone for more than a year, it is likely that the battery’s holding capacity has degraded. That’s because lithium-ion batteries come with a limited charging cycle, which degrades over time. And in many devices, this can also impact performance.
Still, by its second year, your smartphone likely takes a longer time to get charged and loses the charge quickly. We were hoping 2022 would be the year when smartphone companies would start offering something new around battery technology. But it appears this has remained in the realm of research for now.
What we got instead were fast chargers—120W, 150W, 80W and 67W were popular options. Of course, companies insisted the chargers were fully tested and would not negatively impact charging life cycles. Frankly, if a phone came with slow charging—Apple and Samsung—reviewers were ready to slam it as the worst possible option.
Our take: sure, fast charging is great, but let’s not pretend it doesn’t destroy the battery life in the long run. And lack of fast charging doesn’t mean it’s a ‘terrible’ phone. Will 2023 see the phone battery change in a big way? We don’t have our hopes yet.
5G launched in India, but it is yet to arrive everywhere. (Image source: Pixabay)
What we wanted: 5G speeds
What we got: Software not ready
As tech journalists, we have been getting ready for 5G and its amazing use since 2016. And this year, 5G finally arrived in India, well sort of. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially declared 5G services open for business on October 1, it took a while before they arrived on our mobile phones. And not all devices were 5G ready, including Apple’s iPhone, the Pixel 7 series, etc. While Apple has officially rolled out 5G support for iPhones and so have many other brands, telecoms are yet to fully roll out this service in many cities. The expectation is that 2023 will become more widely available. Will everyone get 1GBp speeds then? We’re certainly waiting to see that.
What we wanted: AR headset, metaverse
What we got: Legs in the metaverse
Legs finally made it to Zuckerberg’s Metaverse. (Image source: File photo from a video)
Augmented Reality, ah, that’s another term bandied about since 2017 and even earlier. AR is the future, we are told, well, actually it is now MR aka mixed reality where AR merges with Virtual Reality (VR). There were some great expectations around the ‘metaverse’. Some people even hosted weddings and sangeets in the metaverse. But the excitement around metaverse soon died down.
More importantly, some had hoped Apple would showcase its MR headset in 2022. That didn’t happen, and we now expect it to take place in 2023. Meta introduced Meta Quest Pro, its mixed reality VR headset, which offered improved performance. Zuckerberg promised how it would improve the metaverse experience. But the Meta Quest Pro did not garner positive reviews. Plus, Meta finally added ‘Legs’ to the metaverse—yes, the earlier metaverse humans were legless creatures, just floating torsos, which caused a lot of jokes. The metaverse is so far proving to be a great mirage. Will metaverse finally get real in 2023? Who knows.
Source:https://indianexpress.com/
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