2004: Fred predicts the smartphone, noting that even Captain Kirk had to carry two devices.
It just occurred to me the other day that Captain Kirk had a communicator AND a phaser. Two devices, wholly separate, that he had to carry around velcro’d to his belt. Spock had a tricorder, and Bones had a bunch of medical do-hickeys. And Uhura had that funky headset thingey that shoved in her ear.
What’s my point here? According to sci-fi future history, devices were continuing to proliferate. I still believe that most of the devices we carry around with us could somehow be combined, and done well. Phone, PDA, GPS, MP3 player, digital camera, game, media player… These things have a lot of common elements: screen, input device such as a keyboard, speaker, microphone, mass storage, removable media if necessary, operating system — and don’t forget battery!
There are some hardware elements that are device-specific, such as lenses, antennas and some chips such as mobile phone and GPS, but I can imagine including these or allowing them to be attached modularly. The Treo phone sets come close, though their cameras are low-res VGA and I don’t believe they have GPS capability. Will we someday have a good pocket device platform?
(Written in 2004. Three years before the iPhone.)