Behold, the almighty cell phone!

There’s no telling what kinds of advances phones will see in the next decade and beyond

I am guessing that you own a cell phone. Or a variation of one, such as a smartphone. Whether it’s a recent acquisition or you’ve had one since the first phone breached the consumer market, there is no denying that they’ve become a fixture in modern society. And while I’m just old enough to remember life before the rise of the cell phones (back when I was in high school, all the cool kids had pagers), I am both amazed and a bit overwhelmed by the impact that these small devices have made in our daily lives.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a crowded movie theater with some friends, waiting for the previews to begin. I couldn’t help but notice that a vast majority of people in the theater were using some sort of phone, probably doing countless different tasks from the comfort of our cushy seats. It made me think of how “connected” our society has become, and how quickly we’ve gotten here.

The cell phones of today are quite powerful tools. We can do just about anything on a phone that we can do on a PC, with so many capabilities integrated into a single handheld device. In the early 2000s, I had a phone with a small monochrome screen that did little else besides make phone calls and send text messages. Today, even my plain ol’ just-a-cell-phone provides me with Internet access, so when a friend of mine updates his Twitter from Japan, I can receive it within seconds on my phone. It’s pretty amazing, if you think about it.

Phones today have built-in GPS, music players, and digital cameras that rival the stand-alone devices. And most of these options are standard. Some phones can access thousands of Web apps, have image and video editors, and allow you to write actual documents via a QWERTY keyboard touchscreen with audible tactile feedback!

More and more people seem to like having that old connected feeling. If you go just about anywhere today, you’re bound to see someone doing something on a phone. Several of my friends use their phones to e-mail pictures and videos, or post them to Facebook even when they are miles from a PC. Come to think of it, while waiting for the previews to start at the movies that night, my brother used his phone to watch a show that he had downloaded earlier. If he wanted to, he could have plugged his pico projector into the phone and let everyone else watch, too.

So, what’s next?

There’s no telling what kinds of advances phones will see in the next decade and beyond. After spending some time on Google trying to get a feel for some future phone trends, I’ve found that there are really endless possibilities. Many analysts and tech bloggers have predicted that smartphones will outsell PCs in the near future. I certainly think that they will. I wouldn’t be surprised if 20 years from now, everything from conducting an international webcast to shutting off the iron (from work!) will be done be via phone.

What do think? What does the future hold for the almighty cell phone?

Christina D’Airo