A few more iterations of the Apple Watch and we might be in a position to ditch smartphones entirely.
Instead of tablets being the ugly middle child, maybe they will become the new smartphones, with people favouring the large screen for intense work, and using the Watch for messaging and music.
I love that idea. In the same way that few people listen to CDs anymore, but the vinyl industry is growing again. Streaming fills the quick-and-easy use case, vinyl fills the immersive-listening use case.
I think that could be a viable option for a lot of people (not all people - I can't imagine on the go emails and messaging on a watch) and not for a few years. If and when Siri becomes great, then the iPhone could become obsolete for many people.
In an ideal world, this would stop people from inhabiting the purgatory that is currently phone ownership. You're not going to browse reddit on your watch in the elevator - maybe you'll make small talk and save the reddit for your own toilet. In an ideal world.
I don't anticipate high schools being filled with two thousand children consuming instagram photos on their wrist. I don't anticipate college bars being filled with people cocking their wrists to the side taping intently onto a watch. And I don't anticipate my train commute into the city filled with people staring into the even smaller form factor of this device as they consume video and email...
I'd love a world where the brains are a wrist watch form factor, and phones/tablets/laptops are just better screens and keyboards (ie dumb interfaces) which connect to said watch. Let me scale up to the form factor I need, but keep my encrypted and personal hardware, data and connection on my person at all times in a waterproof form factor.
Tablets don't fit well in pockets, so I'm never going to carry one all the time. And watches don't have a big enough screen to be my primary device since neither messaging nor music is my primary phone use (reading books, news, and websites is).
But isn't reading much better on a larger screen? If all you do is reading, maybe you'll find yourself with an e-reader in a few years? Or a smaller tablet (iPad mini?)
Instead of tablets being the ugly middle child, maybe they will become the new smartphones, with people favouring the large screen for intense work, and using the Watch for messaging and music.