Smartphone could become obsolete within a decade, tech leaders say | Hacker News Reader

Smartphone could become obsolete within a decade, tech leaders say

ktla.com

5 pointsBender10 comments

I assume they mean these products will be voice driven? Maybe I'm an outlier here, but I would not like that, it would make use in public spaces awkward for me. Silence is golden

You will be able to use your hands with smart glasses, poking virtual displays.

If you get the chance, try an HoloLens 2, the UX is bar none. Still grumpy they canned that team and project.

the headline: "tech leaders say"

the article quotes one tech leader.

> Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm, told Fortune that smart glasses are the leading candidate to replace smartphones

it also says "according to a new report from Fortune" and then links to the report [0] that is more than a month old.

oh and it's not actually a "report" it's excerpts of a podcast interview that the "Chief Content Officer" of Fortune did with the CEO of Qualcomm.

> For example, you’ll be walking around with glasses, and you’re going to see something you really like. You’ll say, “I’d like to buy this. How much is it on Amazon?” Or, “Can you render how I’m going to look with this on?”

I am begging "tech leaders" to realize that people do things with their phone other than buy shit.

I'm scrolling on my phone and see a funny meme. I say "haha look at this" and show my partner my phone's screen.

can I do that with smart glasses? no? OK then, smart glasses aren't going to replace my phone.

I don't care if the smart glasses are able to give me a "curated shopping experience" or whatever other euphemism they come up with for "it's an ad but we've convinced you that you enjoy looking at it". if it fails the "haha look at this meme" test it has absolutely zero chance of replacing the smartphone as the quintessential device that everyone owns.

0: https://fortune.com/2026/05/18/smartphones-days-numbered-ai-...

Smartphones can operate without a net connection, having sufficient internal storage and compute capability to handle various tasks. What can smart glasses do without a network? How do such glasses work with the various less-than-perfect vision distribution in populations?

Obviously, we won’t need smart phones because we’ll all live in the metaverse.

> AI-powered wearables like smart glasses could replace smartphones as people’s primary personal devices

Give me a break. The form factor of a smart phone is very difficult to beat

The UX of AR is very difficult to beat too. I definitely like floating windows to having one tiny little screen. It's just a hardware optimization problem at this point.

> The UX of AR is very difficult to beat

Sure, I agree it's good for some things but do not think there is sufficient overlap with a smartphone to replace them. If anything they supplement each other and are better together.

Yea, I tend to agree they will be an accessory for quite a while.

What do you see the smart phone doing that smart glasses cannot?

The first example jumping out to me are selfies and selfies with other people. Maybe smart glasses can do it but not easy or well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com