Mobile Computing: Past, Present, and Future

Our concept of mobile computing has change drastically in the past 5 years. Five years ago, it was all about the laptop/notebook. Notebooks were carted all over the place, but they all didn’t have internet access. Wireless internet has reshaped the way we access our data. We now have the ability to move around, and keep in touch without being tethered to a wall.

The PDA used to be the center of ulta-portable computing. A number of advanced has push the PDA back, and out of the limelight. The iPod allowed people to listen to all their music, anywhere. Soon after that, mobile phones got faster, and soon could do a lot of the things a PDA could, while retaining their true heritage as a phone.

Once again, Apple pushed the boundries, and blurred the line between phone, laptop, pda, and iPod. There’s no doubt that if you have an iPhone or iPod touch, that you feel like you’ve got a small computer in your hand. Now with the iPhone 3g announced at WWDC, the price point is coming closer to the average consumer, with speeds that rival that of wireless access, meaning you can load those pages and exchange internet anywheres where there’s cell coverage.

The last step that we’ve seen is the introduction of the Asus Eee PC and the Macbook Air. Both of these computer start from the laptop side of the equation and push it towards the even more mobile side.

So where can we go from here? We can expect to see cheaper, faster, and more widely accessible devices. People are going to start getting used to having their everything in the palm of their hand. E-mail, music, web, movies, and the list goes on. I can see Blackberry users converting, for the fact that the blackberry lacks in some aspects. The Blackberry feels very outdated by todays shiney interfaces. The touch screen revolutionizing the way we interact with data, and it’s here to stay. Mobile Safari lets people view webpages like they’re supposed to look, unlike the Blackberry browser.

Step by step, our lives are becoming more mobile, and people like it.