The smartphone revolution happened not too long ago, even though it might seem that way as they have become an integral part of our lives and we just can't imagine our world without them. They have gone much beyond the word "phone" and have incorporated a whole host of other indispensable technologies.

In a short duration of time, smartphones have really come a long way. The pre-touchscreen era had semi smartphones with keypads which all but seem like a distant memory now. I would argue that the launch of the iPhone was the catalyst that drove mainstream adoption of smartphones.

Of course Apple wasn't the inventor but it certainly did what it does best. Launch things that work and make them popular. From there on, smartphones have evolved quite a lot as market mechanics took over. They single handedly created a multi-hundred billion dollar industry with many tech giants sharing a piece of the pie.

Even after all the advancements and refinements, smartphones still have a long ways to go. It is quite intriguing to think what the ultimate simplication of this technology could look like. Will it be something straight out of a science fiction movie?

A Slab of Glass

Some tend to believe that even before smartphones have a chance to reach their ultimate form, some other technology will replace them. Augmented reality glasses are often touted as the smartphone killer and that may very well happen.

But I think that, that is still a ways off and smartphones still have at least a decade to develop further. In my opinion, the ultimate refinement would be a slab of glass, something that you might have seen in a movie. Just imagine, a transparent piece of thin yet strong glass that is a lot more powerful than the smartphones of today.

It would literally redefine the term simplication and I think it's not far-fetched to say that it can one day become a reality. The biggest challenge would of course be figuring out how to make the battery and the logic board transparent, but history stands proof that we have always managed to make the impossible, possible and I think that this will be achieved as well.

It would be even better if we could have a foldable glass smartphone. Then it could serve as our phone as well as our tablet. The future generation, which would value portability even more in my opinion, would surely go gaga over this tech.