Ten years ago it was all about PCs, five years ago it was all about laptops, and the past few years it’s all been about mobile. So what does the near future have in store for us technophiles? It needs a specific set of ingredients – the power of the PC, the portability of the laptop and the connectivity of the mobile device. It needs to be cool (i.e. Apple must make one). And finally, it needs to be expensive. What meets all these criteria? 2012, meet the Ultrabook.
According to Intel, the main appeal of an Ultrabook comes from the light weight, long battery life, strong performance, low-energy processors and integrated SSD (much faster than a normal hard drive). Intel also estimates that, assuming humanity survives 2012, 40% of the consumer computer market will soon belong to Ultrabooks. This year saw the market start to open up and electronics fairs like CES will undoubtedly be full to the brim of the new, stylish form factor.
The appeal of Ultrabooks is speed and size and Apple’s MacBook Air – which fits in the Ultrabook category – is currently the most popular in the market. It’s priced around $1000, which seems to be the current sweet spot and has received generally positive reviews. In fact the biggest criticism is the lack of CD drive, missing because it would be impossible to make one thin enough to squeeze inside the enclosure. As we start to get more and more connected though, this seems to matter less and less. In fact, whilst we rightly celebrate the popularity of the Ultrabook over the next year, perhaps the biggest, and probably unnoticed, change will be the slow, quiet demise of the CD
Other York Vision predictions for 2012:
iTV
Seemingly, Steve Jobs used his dying breath to declare his final gift to humanity – the death of the TV business. No one quite knows what his solution will be but Apple has been working on it for years with the heavily underrated Apple TV, and by all accounts 2012 will be the year we find out what he meant when he said he’d cracked it. One thing we do know, however, is that it won’t be called the iTV (ITV will see to that).
Wireless Charging & Wireless Mobile Payments (NFC)
These are two technologies that have been less than six months away from real popularity for about three years; they’ve just never really taken off like they should. So, in the spirit of tradition (and because this year might actually be their year), we’ve included them here. They’re both brilliant technical ideas, respectively doing away with wires and the need for a wallet but they still need a big company to push them into our hearts and homes. Fingers crossed!
Windows Phone 7 takes bronze
Nokia have been quiet in 2011, hurriedly rebuilding themselves for the smartphone era. This year they released their first proper Windows Phone 7 smartphone with the beginning of the Lumia range. Made from polycarbonate (not that cheap plastic they make other phones from) and looking stunning, it will hopefully herald the entry to market of the third mobile operating system. They’ll not compete with iOS or Android for a while yet, but it’s certainly nice to have a fresh choice.
The death of RIM
Probably the most certain of all predictions we could make is that RIM (creators of BlackBerry products) will not be alive in 2013 as they are today. Over the past year, everything they’ve done has been plagued by failure and bad luck and they desperately need to turn it round. Perhaps their unusual dual-CEO structure will be dropped, or their new BB10 platform will arrive successfully, or they’ll stop the three-day dropouts, or their staff will stop chewing their way out of handcuffs on aeroplanes (Google it). Whatever it is, they need to be doing it sooner rather than later.
Hoverboards
As we all know, thanks to Back to the Future II, in 1985 Marty McFly travelled to 2015 to find that hoverboards are the quickest way to travel. My film knowledge tells me we should also start wearing those shiny ‘future’ one-piece suits that everyone in every sci-fi programme wears. We should probably expect that sort of technology to be surfacing in the next year or so. Also, cars will fly, the Mayan Calendar will not spell destruction of the earth and DeLorean-based time-travel will be possible. It really should be a good few years.