What do you think is the next big thing in smartphones?

These days, smartphones are everywhere and seemingly everyone has one. Smartphones themselves have essentially become the norm and it's sort of rare to see someone with a non-smartphone in their hands and because of that, there's a lot of new ideas coming to light and new innovations being put to work. While not all of them will end up surviving the long term, it's a good thing that companies are pushing the limits and seeing what takes off for consumers.

Most recently, Apple unveiled their M7 coprocessor, 64-bit mobile processing and Fingerprint scanner and while fingerprint scanners have been tried before, coprocessors are becoming more common in mobile. While all of this is going on, other companies such as LG and Samsung are off doing their own thing and creating curved displays, Google is working some serious voice-activated features but after all that, what comes next?

We've also only scratched the surface of what 64-bit processing will do to the mobile landscape.jmr1015, iMore Forums Member

What is the next big thing? It's a question that has been asked in the iMore forums recently and there's certainly some great discussion happening there. Will it be the full realization of 64-bit processing on mobile or will it be something entirely different?

Battery life is something I would personally like to see improvements upon. It seems each year we get bigger, better displays. Faster and more power hungry networks, all the while loading up on faster processors which promise better battery life but realistically there hasn't been many actually released battery innovations for years. Where are these fantastic hyper cells that can help recharge a batter in around 30 seconds?

Just simply more than three days in battery life. If they can nail that, I think contextual computing won't be a far off reality.Speedygi, iMore Forums Member

I'm guessing it'll be a while yet before we see those improvements so what else? Well, we know Sony and Microsoft have some new consoles on the way and they've kind of sort of been ramping up tools that will tie your smartphone and tablets into them so that's not entirely out of the question and seems some folks would like to see improvements in that area.

Soon, you'll be having the same experience you have on your Xbox or PlayStation on your phone...and it will essentially destroy the hand held market.SeanHRCC, iMore Forums Member

It's all very interesting to consider and when you think about it, you never really know when the 'next big thing' is here until it starts to take off for the masses. So, that's a bit of what some of our iMore Forums members want to see in the next big thing, feel free to add your ideas to the mix as well by heading into the forums or dropping some comments below for everyone to read through.

Chris Parsons

Editor-at-Large at Mobile Nations, gadget junkie, energy drinker, ranter.