Ubiquitous smartphones
Asked which devices they're looking forward to seeing in future, Maitre said he was excited by the potential of the Android OS, saying phones using it will be "even better than iPhones".
On the prospect of all phones becoming smartphones, Timmons observed that the need for an additional applications processor to run these more advanced features means that there will always be a price premium for smartphones and hence a market for cheaper, more basic alternatives.
Maitre shone the spotlight on operators and said a major factor affecting the ubiquity of smartphones is the premium subscribers must pay for data packages. The smaller the premium people have to pay, the more of a no-brainer the decision becomes, but de Lencquesaing questioned the ability of operators to provide the bandwidth required by widespread smartphone use.
A question that won't go away in these types of debates is which form factor will dominate. The answer is probably neither, for the reasons covered at the start of this article: people will want both a one handed and a two handed device. One carried on a pocket, the other in a bag.
"Much over a four inch diagonal screen size is perceived by consumers as too big for the pocket," said de Lencquesaing. "And the keyboard on a notebook with a screen much smaller than ten inches is perceived as too small to use. So this creates a gap between the two form factors."
We have to agree. We can't see the point of a UMPC type device with, say, a six inch screen, which is awkward to type on but which you still have to carry in a bag.
