Phones are the new cars

The car's history suggests that the phone's future is about divergence, not convergence

Phones, like cars, are fashion items: people generally replace them long before they actually wear out. Both are social technologies that bring people together and act as symbols of independence for teenagers. And phones and cars alike promote freedom, mobility and new lifestyles, with unexpected social consequences. Both started off being defined by their precursors: early cars resembled horseless carriages, and early mobile phones looked similar to push-button fixed-line phones, only without the wire. Now both come in a bewildering range of strange shapes and sizes.

Last, and perhaps most important, the history of the car suggests that the technology industry's current mania for “converged” devices is misguided. Nobody asks what the ideal shape for a car is, or predicts that eventually all cars will look identical. Instead there are different models for different uses: roomy people-carriers for school runs, sports cars for those suffering mid-life crises, small cars for urban dwellers. Some people own more than one car, since no single vehicle meets all their needs. The same will surely be true of phones: the quest for the perfect handset that does everything is silly, since different types of users have different requirements. That suggests that handsets will become more diverse, rather than more uniform, in future: divergence, not convergence. At the same time, expect to see more people switching between different phones depending on the situation. For clues to the future of the phone, look in your driveway.

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