By every available measurement, the global penetration of smartphones is unstoppable.
With a direct correlation between frequent travelers and smartphone adoption, it is essential the industry pay attention to the growth of this new platform and be sensitive to emerging smartphone capabilities coming to the market.
It is important to keep in mind that we are at the early stages of this mobile revolution.
In 1994, people viewed the internet as brochureware versus the social web today.
Early TV programs filmed radio shows before the true power of the medium was recognized. We are at the first stage of this transformation from cell phone to personal computing device. So what’s next?
2010 Outlook – Not a Phone but a Tricorder
I am of the Star Trek generation. I grew up watching the show while it was still on broadcast TV in the 1960s.
On the 25th anniversary of Star Trek television special, a segment tracked how specific devices portrayed on the show back in the mid 1960’s had become common place in the 1990s (e.g. computer disk and pen tablets).
Is the smartphone the realization of the Star Trek Communicator?
The smartphone is more than a communicator, but its emerging capabilities are more a kin to a Tricorder.
If you are not familiar with a Tricorder it is a device that scans an area, interprets and displays data from scans to the user, and records information.
Smartphones are becoming a 21st century Tricorder as they are increasingly used as sensors for all sorts of environmental data.
Currently smartphones can detect your location (GPS), motion (accelerometer), proximity, direction, and ambient light; but this is only the beginning.
People are using smartphones to monitor their bodily functions (heart rate, blood sugar), their physical workouts (distance run, calories expended) and to capture real-time activity through pictures and videos. Â All this information can be instantly updated to the Web providing immediate access to user content.
Sentient Things
In his classic book, Smart Mobs, Howard Rheingold described the concept of sentient things: adding information and communication to physical objects. Howard predicted that we would soon be in a world where the smartphone would interact with the physical world.
There is evidence of this today, such as the Dutch company, Layer, whose virtual reality application adds information about homes for sale as you view them through the smartphone.
One of the finalists at the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit, EveryTrail allows users to track and record their walking tours augmenting their trail with pictures from their smartphone.
This is only the beginning. Over the next few years travelers will become accustomed to using their smartphones to both receive and transmit information about their physical surroundings. Combining mobile sensing applications with social networking applications, travelers will benefit from the wisdom of the crowd.
What does this mean for the global travel industry? Any supplier in the real world must be sensitive that the traveling community will be able to annotate any physical aspect of their travel experience and share it with fellow travelers.
The travelers will likely use embedded crowd wisdom to choose tours, activities and restaurants. Mass customization will provide walking tours geared to every market segment.
The smartphone is already an indispensable tool for the frequent traveler. As the world becomes annotated with traveler feedback, the smartphone will be an essential tool for the leisure and business traveler.
And, oh by the way, you can download a Tricorder app for the iPhone.
About Special Nodes
Hi,
Thanks for this very good article. It remembers me one from eyeTravel about the fact that all the services are provided to organize a travel but nothing to enjoy your travel into your new place.
However, smartphones need 3G or WiFi providers to be able to give acces to such services, according to you, how can a worldwide access without extra fees can occur?
Julien: It’s the paradox of mobile growth, in a way.
Smartphones need carriers to drop their roaming and GSM charges, but that is expensive for the operators.
However, operators need Smartphones to grow in order to sell my handsets to enthusiastic users.
Something will give way eventually.
One wonders if the outcome is higher fees for standard calls.
When I’m traveling to the States (from Canada), I can go to my provider and get a flat-fee package to cover all my data usage. From Rogers, this is $10. Although it’s supposed to be a continual month-by-month fee, I just get them to put a cancellation on when I book it, for the next month. That seems to work well.
In the apps world, there’s the possibility of storing a lot of data on the mobile device. There’s a trade-off here however, as you have to deal with data staleness and the fact, for the iPhone, that it won’t let you install apps greater than 10Mb if you’re not connected to a WiFi device or your desktop.