More than a year has passed, time to revisit this article and see if it holds up to the promise.... it does!

CLICKBAIT

Rotary phones will be all the rage in few years. Release your soul from useless surfing and chatting; consumerism at its finest. Enjoy nature and live life.

My old ACER laptop with Windows 7 works like a champ.

Just do one thing don't walk around with an earpiece. You will either make people think you are talking to yourself or at them. Please don't look ridiculous. Thanks. ----concerned citizen.

On another note If you are new to the smart phone market why not get a used 4s and save yourself a fortune? That's what I did. The 4s is still way to much phone for me. I gotta delete half the junk that's on here. Too much fluff.

Apple iOS and Android are the future. BlackBerry and Microsoft are paying a painful prices for their ignorant and arrogant.

One more thing: Motorola, HP and Nokia are facing extinction themselves and fighting for survival.

Developed country smartphone markets are quickly becoming saturated. Short-term, that means more upgrades to keep driving volume.

Longer-term, virtual reality will replace smartphones. It is waiting for the right invention to capture the public's imagination. Probably 5-10 years away, but who knows?

VR is silly, people walk off cliffs to their deaths already!

I'll pass I will just keep using my 4s for the next 50 years.

this is it, in a nutshell

Yes. I can see the demise of the cell phone. I cal also see the sun getting cold in a couple of million years. I can predict without a doubt in less than a hundred years the oil industry will disappear. Better technology and fuels will take their place. Wait a mixture....maybe just maybe cell technology will be replaces and simply usher in a new way to communicate.

Wow what prescience. Apple will be knocking on your door soon.
I for one HATE talking to a robot and will be damned reluctant to do so. I like having a dialog where I get real feedback from a human and dislike talking to that robotic voice messaging we have to deal with nearly every day because companies are too cheap to hire real people. When then do you STILL get to talk to a robot before you talk to that human. Those humans are usually in India, Philippines or other off-shore locations because, again, companies are too cheap to pay a living wage to Americans who buy what those companies are selling. I sure hope Apple continues to make devices I don't have to talk to. Don't mind if that AI capability is included but not the only interactive method. I'm a happy luddite and intend to stay that way.

Yep, and I can't imagine wearing Google Glass and becoming a "glasshole". I already have bifocals with astigmatism. Yuck.

My money is on Apple to continue being the one that makes money.

I don't know. I think even the hipsters are getting tired with Apple.

You would be wrong, hipsters have given up arguing who is the best, that's all...

Oh yeah I thought about it and they have money burning holes in their pockets.

That A.I. assistant still needs processing power. The smartphone can morph into some other smart handheld device but Apple will still likely be the one providing it. They will duplicate the pioneer but make it ubiquitous cause, unlike Blackberry, they have $200 Billion to defend or buy their place in this market. Good luck overthrowing them. I would not bet against Apple in the mobile handheld market any time soon.

I know many people with zero Apple devices.

Like my mom and dad. They are happy with their jitterbug phones and have a cheap laptop.

I have none. I had an iPhone but dumped it two years ago. Overpriced for what you get. To buy apple products you must see value in the brand cache. But as a pure value decision and a cold emotionless business decision, there are better options.

Good, that means Apple has more people to sell to in the future. :)

Or that many people have found better, more flexible solutions. I have an Macbook Air Pro, but love my Android (Samsung Note 4). My mom, age 75, has an iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Replaced her Dell netbook which died after 7 years, for the tablet. Progress.

I can see some type of wearable mobile smart phone. Maybe it will be something like a smart watch, but with a larger flexible screen that sits on the wrist, is very light, and has a very long lasting battery. This type of device would most likely have to use nano technology.

I saw a demo showing transparent phones. The ones they will soon come out with have a transparent screen, and the bottom section is not transparent. It will be a number of years more until they can make a transparent battery, and transparent electronics. That's if this can be achieved.

I foresee a day, in the not too distant future, where we can all enjoy an immersive VR experience wearing Oculus goggles. Rather than a room full of people staring down at their smartphone screens, we will be able to completely isolate ourselves from human contact. Awesome!

I don't think I would want to wear electronic goggles. I am having trouble just to tolerate a very light thin frame pair of glasses. I find this thing sitting on my nose is annoying. I tried contact lenses. I was never able to adjust to them. Got rid of them and stayed with the glasses...

My sarcasm was lost on you Jerry.

Based on recent history I'd say the company most likely to displace the cell phone and achieve what the author says is the technology capable of doing so will be Apple. Blackberry did not, does not, have industry leading tablets, laptops, desktops, here comes the watch, Apple Pay, a multi billion dollar App store, iTunes, Apple TV.... and on and on. I wouldn't be surprised if every Apple executive has a blackberry on their desk to remind them what not to do with their company.

About 5 years ago i remember reading similar articles about the Demise or Death of the Pc. Guess what i still see Pc's all over the place and still selling. Maybe wait 10 - 15 years then post this article again an then it might mean something.

Bring back the days of the black, desktop rotary dial phone with a five foot cord, party lines and a live operator. Throw in a 9 inch black and white console TV and a wringer washer and life will be good!

I'd take that trade to get our middle class jobs back from Communist China, where our treasonous neoliberal elite have sent them.

Unfortunately for the industry, the most loyal users keep dying in car accidents (or causing them).

"Cellphone use causes over 1 in 4 car accidents"

http://www.usatoday.com/sto...

You are assuming, incorrectly, that people would drive better without cell phones. That is patently absurd. What it means is that 1 in 4 people should not have been given divers licenses.

We will have a day when we no longer need to manually enter text and can simply communicate with others through voice activation. Behold! The telephone!

You have to manually enter a phone number...

Yes, but I got rid of my rotary dial so it doesn't take that long.

Good move.

Technology is such a racket.

Something to do while we are waiting around to die.

watch is here and it is becoming big. for sensitive data the watch's touchscreen and digital crown can be used for data entry. there is no better simplification than the watch in the market, for people who value their time and health there is nothing better than using the watch!

The watch = proof that there's a sucker born every minute. The Pebble is better and cheaper.

Until voice input and gestures can be performed in such a way that the input remains private, they will be essentially useless for much of our communication, except for those individuals who don't care if the whole world gets their message.

I think you have to look at what's driving the market and it seems that most smartphone usage centers around social media, which is primarily a visual medium. People check their Facebook accounts numerous times a day to see what's been posted by their friends, as well as any posts from news feeds they are following. Any advancing technology that would move people away from screen time will have to replace that ability with something that is even more convenient, personal, and with limited interactivity, or I don't think it will be successful.

strapping a toaster sized object to my face so i can 'interact' with some other person or medium is quite a rid-oculus idea, imo, and one i'll never do.

I think the idea is to create a continuous live-feed of advertisements that consumers will pay thousands of dollars to use.

Not sure whether to call this not news or disingenuous. Maybe both.

Firstly, it not that the smartphone is going to meet it's demise. What would that even mean? A product "meets it's demise" for one of two reasons: the functionality of the product goes obsolete or it gets replaced. The automobile caused buggy whips to meet their demise because that function was no longer needed. And even then, horse and carriage met their demise because the automobile did that functionality better. Or, perhaps the specific product evolves.

Did the iPhone kill the blackberry or was it the case that the blackberry was the preceding smartphone that evolved into the iPhone? So it's disingenuous to state that the smartphone will meet it's demise when the truth will be closer to that product evolving into something somewhat different in form. We'll still be doing what we now do with smartphones (mobile communication, internet, data, etc.), just perhaps with something with a somewhat different form or UI. Does that make it not a "smartphone"? Is a "smartphone" the box with a touch screen or is it the function it serves (the aforementioned mobile communication, internet, data, etc.)? If the latter, then how does it "meet it's demise"?

And even if that functionality becomes reformulated in a different constellation of hardware and UIs, is that the demise of the smartphone or did the smartphone simply evolve to a new formulation?

But even so, this is not news as we should already know this. Desktop PCs begat portable/laptop computers begat PDAs begat Treo/blackberry begat "smartphones" begat...what's next? So how is this some revelation or epiphany?

The American Medical Association and Canadian Medical Association are disrupting this predatory love fest for wireless and wearable tech. Both the AMA and CNA are stating cancer and other cell disruption are caused by the cash cow wireless and now wearable tech. Nice run for those who knew of the health hazards, but chose to hide them in pursuit of ill-begotten profit.

Nobody ever died before cell phones can up on the scene...

how the world will be is all written in the new apps, the new watch apps are so easy to write there will be billions of watch apps doing billions of wonderful exciting things together.