The smartphone transformed the world more completely than any technology since the internet itself — which it eventually subsumed. For fifteen years, selling more smartphones, better smartphones, and more services to smartphone users drove the growth of the largest companies in history.
That era is over.
The Saturation Problem
In developed markets, essentially everyone who wants a smartphone has one. Replacement cycles have lengthened as hardware improvements have become incremental rather than transformative. The upgrade from a two-year-old phone to a new model no longer compels users in the way that moving from a brick phone to a touchscreen once did.
The Candidates to Replace It
The tech industry is investing enormous resources in identifying the next platform. The leading candidates are spatial computing — the broad category that includes augmented reality glasses and mixed reality headsets — and AI interfaces that may not require a screen at all.
Apple's Vision Pro represents the most polished current version of spatial computing. Its first-generation limitations are significant: weight, battery life, and price. But the trajectory of improvement is clear.
The British Opportunity
Britain's strengths in AI research and its relatively strong startup culture give it a credible stake in the next computing platform. The companies that define the user interfaces of spatial computing and AI interaction are not yet built. Some of them will be.
