Good words by Matthew Panzarino, for TechCrunch:
Here’s a thought that I’ve been having more and more lately: the smartphone isn’t just a computer, it’s the computer.
Somehow, unbelievably, humans have stumbled onto the computing paradigm that is going to define how we interact with the systems of the world relatively early in the technological timeline. Whether we call it a smartphone or not in the future and whether it shrinks or grows, the concept of a personal computer that contains what we are, digitally, and can act as the central ‘processor’ to a host of companion devices like desktop terminals and wearables is here to stay.
If you accept this premise, then it makes sense to imagine a world where there are various pieces of purpose built hardware orbiting around our ‘central processing unit’ that are all suited to various tasks. We walk up to a terminal and confirm our identity and it streams information from a device that links our identity, our place and our information together securely to let us immediately work.