Beyond Smartphones: AR Glasses, Brain Chips & the Race to Replace Your Phone

by Marcin Frąckiewicz
in Innovation, Technology, Wearable Devices
on 22 July 2025

Post-Smartphone World Technologies and Trends

Smartphones have ruled our lives for over a decade, but their reign may finally be leveling off. In fact, global smartphone sales have flattened and even declined – only about 1.17 billion units were shipped in 2023, the lowest total in ten years industryexaminer.com. Analysts note people are holding onto phones longer (on average 3+ years now) as new models offer only minor upgrades industryexaminer.com. Tech insiders see this as a sign that the “peak smartphone” era is here, and a post-smartphone future is on the horizon industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. Even Sam Altman’s OpenAI has teamed up with former Apple design chief Jony Ive in a 2025 initiative to invent the next big device beyond the iPhone. As Ive put it, “The products we’re using to connect us to unimaginable technology…they’re decades old. Surely there’s something beyond these legacy products.” reuters.com This sentiment captures a growing industry belief: the next paradigm shift in personal tech is coming, and it won’t be confined to the glass rectangles in our pockets industryexaminer.com.

So, what might replace or augment the ubiquitous smartphone? Candidates include augmented reality (AR) glasses, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), an ecosystem of smart wearables, and ambient computing woven into our surroundings. Each of these emerging technologies promises a radically different way of interacting with the digital world. In this report, we’ll compare these contenders section by section – exploring their latest developments (especially news from 2024–2025), usability and readiness, adoption potential, privacy implications, and the hurdles they face. We’ll also highlight expert predictions on when and how these technologies could eclipse the smartphone.

Augmented Reality Glasses: The Next Vision of Mobile Tech

Imagine slipping on a pair of normal-looking glasses that can display your messages, maps, and calls right in front of your eyes. Augmented reality eyewear aims to do just that – overlay digital information onto your view of the real world, no phone screen required. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is among those betting on this vision: in a 2024 keynote, he predicted that by “the 2030s, our trusty smartphones will quietly slip back into our pockets” and be replaced by smart AR glasses as our primary devices glassalmanac.com. These sleek wearables would offer an immersive, hands-free experience without the constant need to stare at a screen glassalmanac.com.

Tech companies are racing feverishly to make AR glasses a reality. Apple, for instance, has been working for years on its own AR glasses (“Apple Glass”), with CEO Tim Cook repeatedly saying that layering information over the real world – rather than isolating users in VR – is the way forward for technology ynetnews.com. In early 2024 Apple took a first step by launching the Vision Pro, a high-end mixed-reality headset it calls a “spatial computer.” The Vision Pro can float apps and video feeds in mid-air around the user industryexaminer.com, demonstrating how one might work or chat in AR. However, this first-generation device came with significant drawbacks: a hefty $3,499 price, a bulky ski-goggles form factor, and short battery life, leading to very limited adoption outside of developers ynetnews.com ynetnews.com. Industry analyst Mark Gurman noted that Vision Pro’s high weight, awkward usability, lack of apps, and the public’s confusion about its purpose made it flop commercially as a mass-market product ynetnews.com ynetnews.com. Still, Apple insists Vision Pro is just the beginning. Gurman reports Apple’s “ultimate goal is to develop smart glasses that integrate seamlessly into everyday life” and eventually replace the iPhone ynetnews.com ynetnews.com. The true Apple AR glasses are likely still years away, but the company is already developing a special version of its visionOS operating system for them and working to slim down the technology ynetnews.com. Apple’s rivals are on similar timelines: Meta has a long-term project for full AR glasses (building on its Camera-equipped Ray-Ban Stories eyewear), and Samsung and Google just revealed a prototype mixed-reality glasses platform (“Moohan”) expected by late 2025 ynetnews.com.

Despite being nascent, the AR glasses market is poised for rapid growth. Fewer than 1 million AR-capable glasses shipped in 2023, but forecasts by IDC show shipments climbing to over 5 million by 2027 glassalmanac.com. Research firm eMarketer noted in 2025 that smart glasses are emerging as potential successors to the smartphone, as adoption of AR technology steadily rises emarketer.com. They project over 30% of the U.S. population will use some form of AR by 2025 (for example, via apps or glasses), a figure that will exceed VR usage emarketer.com. The appeal is clear: rather than having to grab your phone, AR glasses could seamlessly deliver notifications, navigation, and information in your line of sight. Early demos have been compelling – reporters testing the Vision Pro described “maps and messages drift[ing] over my real-world view without a single tap”, with emails and fitness stats floating in space glassalmanac.com. In theory, AR glasses could serve as personal assistants on your face, providing turn-by-turn directions, real-time language translation, contextual reminders, and even holographic gaming experiences in your environment glassalmanac.com. No more looking down at a phone – you’d get important info at a glance while still seeing the world around you.

Major investments underscore that companies see this as the next platform. Meta’s Reality Labs division (responsible for Quest headsets and AR research) burned through over $10 billion in 2024 alone in pursuit of wearable AR glassalmanac.com. Google, after the early failure of Google Glass a decade ago, is reportedly back in the game, partnering with Qualcomm and others on new AR hardware and software platforms industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. And as mentioned, Apple is in for the long haul, with Cook positioning Apple to “build the thing that replaces the iPhone” whenever it’s ready industryexaminer.com. Tech insiders speculate that controlling the leading glasses operating system and app ecosystem could be as strategically important in the 2030s as iOS and Android were in the 2010s industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. Everyone wants to stake a claim on this potentially massive market.

Usability & Readiness: Today’s AR/MR headsets (like Meta’s Quest Pro or Apple’s Vision Pro) are impressive but far from everyday eyewear – they’re bulky, power-hungry, and typically usable for only a couple hours on battery. True glasses-sized AR wearables are still mostly prototypes. The key technical challenges have been miniaturizing the displays, optics, and batteries enough to fit in normal-looking frames, and developing sensors/AI that can contextualize the world accurately. Progress is being made: each generation gets lighter and more powerful. Meta’s latest smart glasses, for example, look like regular Wayfarer sunglasses and can take photos and play audio, though they lack true AR overlays. Analysts are optimistic that by around 2030 we might have AR glasses indistinguishable from normal prescription glasses, capable of doing everything our smartphones do and more industryexaminer.com. That suggests the technology required (waveguide or holographic displays, advanced chips, etc.) could reach maturity in the next 5–7 years.

Adoption Potential: Once AR glasses overcome their initial hurdles, adoption could follow a trajectory similar to past tech shifts – slow at first, then explosive. The hands-free convenience and contextual awareness they offer is something many consumers find attractive, according to market research glassalmanac.com glassalmanac.com. Imagine walking around a city and having navigation arrows appear on the sidewalk in front of you, or getting a gentle heads-up display of who’s calling without taking out a phone. Such use cases can be compelling. However, mass adoption will require prices to come down significantly (into the few-hundred-dollar range) and content to expand. Early devices will likely target professionals and enthusiasts (as smartphones did before app stores made them essential for everyone). Industry experts predict that as AR glasses become lighter and cheaper in the late 2020s, we’ll see them move from niche gadget to mainstream necessity – potentially replacing a lot of daily smartphone screen time industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. Zuckerberg is openly betting that by the early 2030s, smart glasses will become our primary computing platform, the way smartphones replaced flip phones and cameras glassalmanac.com glassalmanac.com. If he’s right, the next decade will gradually shift us from phones-in-hand to glasses-on-face as our main digital gateway.

Privacy Implications: AR glasses raise thorny privacy issues for both wearers and bystanders. A key controversy is the built-in cameras and sensors that these glasses use to “see” the world. People around the wearer may feel uneasy or spied upon by hidden cameras, as happened with Google Glass in 2013 (which sparked backlash and even the derisive term “Glassholes” for users). Companies are learning from that lesson – for instance, newer smart glasses have LED indicator lights to show when recording. But beyond cameras, AR devices also process what you’re looking at, whom you’re talking to, and potentially a constant stream of environmental data. This raises concerns about data collection and surveillance. Will the AR platform provider be tracking everything the user sees? Could malicious actors hack the feed and “see” through your glasses? There are also personal privacy aspects: if your glasses are recognizing faces or overlaying someone’s social media info when you meet them, that crosses into creepy territory fast. Regulators are aware of these issues. In Europe, strict laws like GDPR already limit data recording in public, and upcoming AI regulations will likely require transparency about AI-driven visual recognition industryexaminer.com. Tech companies will need to build in privacy protections (local processing, clear indicators, data encryption) to reassure users and the public. Another concern is distraction and consent – will people around you need to ask “Are you recording me with those glasses?” as became common with early smart glasses? Society will have to adjust norms around wearable tech. In short, AR glasses blur the line between the digital and public space, so privacy safeguards and etiquette will be critical to widespread acceptance industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com.

Barriers to Entry: Aside from privacy and the technical hurdles mentioned (battery life, miniaturization), social acceptance is a big barrier. Glasses are face-worn and thus part of your identity; many consumers won’t wear something that looks odd or marks them as “tech gadgets.” This is why companies are partnering with fashion brands (e.g. Ray-Ban, Luxottica) to design glasses people actually want to wear. Another barrier is the user interface – controlling AR glasses needs to be as easy as smartphone touchscreens. Current methods include voice commands, gesture recognition, or even eye-tracking and neural inputs. Each has challenges: voice is awkward to use in public and has privacy issues (speaking out loud), hand gestures can tire you or seem silly, and eye-tracking or neural sensors are still experimental. Companies like Meta are exploring wristbands with neural sensors that pick up signals from your muscles, allowing you to click or scroll just by intending to move your finger industryexaminer.com. That could be a game-changer for AR usability if it pans out. Cost and app ecosystems are barriers too: early AR devices are expensive and have few apps beyond demos. It will take a critical mass of users before developers jump in with “must-have” AR apps (remember, smartphones were niche until apps like Maps, Facebook, and Uber proved their value). Lastly, regulatory and safety concerns: governments may impose rules on when and where AR glasses can be used (for example, many workplaces or movie theaters banned Google Glass to prevent recording; driving with AR could be restricted until proven safe). Overcoming these barriers will require time, innovation, and public trust. But if and when they are overcome, AR glasses could truly redefine personal computing.

Brain-Computer Interfaces: Phones in Our Heads?

On the more futuristic end of the spectrum is the idea of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) – devices that connect our brains directly to computers, potentially letting you control devices “at the speed of thought.” It sounds like science fiction, but rapid progress is being made in this field for medical purposes, and tech visionaries believe it could eventually transform consumer tech as well. Elon Musk, for one, has boldly hinted that your next phone might not be a phone at all – it could be inside your head. In late 2023, Apple executive Eddy Cue speculated under oath that “You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now, as crazy as it sounds,” thanks to advances in AI and new devices. Musk responded to this remark with a one-word suggestion: “@Neuralink” moneycontrol.com moneycontrol.com – referring to his own brain-implant startup. In other words, Musk believes a Neuralink brain chip could replace the smartphone within a decade moneycontrol.com moneycontrol.com. The idea is that a small implant in the skull, with electrodes interfacing with the brain, could allow you to control technology by thought and receive information directly into your mind, bypassing the need for screens or physical devices moneycontrol.com. Instead of tapping on a phone, you might mentally ask a question or compose a message, and the answer could “telepathically” appear in your mind’s eye or auditory cortex.

That vision is still a long way off for healthy users, but 2024–2025 has seen historic milestones in BCI technology. On January 28, 2024, the first human patient received a Neuralink brain implant as part of the company’s FDA-approved trials news.harvard.edu. The patient, a 37-year-old man with paralysis, had Musk’s “Link” chip inserted into the area of the brain that controls movement. In the months since, he learned to move a computer cursor with his thoughts and even play simple computer games like Pong using only brain signals news.harvard.edu. This follows earlier successes by academic groups that enabled paralyzed patients to control robotic arms or text by thinking, but Neuralink’s trial is notable as a private venture pushing toward a widely available implant. Other companies are in the race too: in 2025, a neurotech startup called Paradromics announced it had successfully implanted its BCI device in a human for the first time during an epilepsy surgery foxnews.com. The Paradromics implant – inserted temporarily in a 20-minute procedure – was able to record neural activity and then was removed, a demo of how minimally invasive the next-gen devices are becoming foxnews.com. Meanwhile, competitors like Synchron have been testing brain interfaces delivered via blood vessels (avoiding open brain surgery), and academic teams are exploring non-invasive BCI headsets that use brainwave-reading sensors. In short, the field is moving fast. BCIs have already restored movement and communication for a few clinical trial participants, and companies are racing to refine the tech, reduce risks, and scale up manufacturing.

Usability & Readiness: Let’s be clear – brain-computer interfaces are not anywhere near replacing your everyday electronics today. The systems in use now are either invasive (surgically implanted chips) or non-invasive but bulky (electrode caps, headbands), and all are currently limited to research or medical contexts. The primary focus in 2024–2025 is medical BCI applications: helping paralyzed patients control cursors, enabling amputees to move prosthetic limbs with their minds, or allowing patients with conditions like locked-in syndrome to communicate via thought-to-text. These are incredible advances for disability technology. For healthy users, however, the BCI experience is far from convenient or safe enough to be a casual consumer product. An implanted chip requires brain surgery – with all the risks that entails – and even then, current BCIs have fairly low data bandwidth (they can detect general patterns or a limited number of “thought” commands, not complex streams of consciousness). Non-invasive BCIs (like EEG headsets) require wearing a cap or band with electrodes and gel on your scalp, and they pick up very noisy signals (mostly useful for basic meditation feedback or simple yes/no outputs). In terms of readiness, BCIs for everyday use are likely decades away, if they come at all. Even Elon Musk, known for aggressive timelines, speaks about Neuralink’s consumer applications as something for the 2030s. Experts in neuroscience caution that our understanding of the brain is still too crude to reliably decode complex thoughts or implant devices long-term without health risks. That said, strides are being made: Neuralink’s device is fully wireless and inductively charged (no cables sticking out of the head), and it packs 1,024 electrodes, which is orders of magnitude more channels than earlier implants like the Utah Array. Paradromics boasts over 400 microneedle electrodes in its implant, and they achieved successful recording with a quick surgery foxnews.com foxnews.com. These improvements hint that future versions could be safer, more capable, and easier to implant (perhaps as an outpatient procedure).

Looking ahead, some foresee a gradual path to broader use: first, more medical trials through the late 2020s, proving BCIs can safely restore functions; then perhaps niche consumer use by the 2030s for early adopters (for example, brain implants for advanced AR/VR gamers or for communication in extreme environments); and only in the farther future would we see optional “brain phone” implants for the average person, if ever. It’s worth noting that society may or may not embrace that – many might prefer external wearables to implanted chips, even if the latter offer more seamless interaction, simply because of the invasiveness and psychological barrier.

Adoption Potential: In the long run, the potential of brain-computer interfaces is immense and almost transformational. If you could think a command to your smart home or silently dictate a message at the speed of thought, it would outclass any physical gadget. This is why Musk and others talk about BCIs as the ultimate interface – no lag, no dexterity needed, just pure intention turned into action. Some optimists predict that in 20–30 years, brain interfaces “will be as common as laser eye surgery” for those who want enhanced capabilities. There are also less invasive forms like neural earbuds or neck implants being theorized, which might read signals from nerves to achieve a similar effect without going into the brain. But adoption will be a huge challenge. Surveys show many people are uncomfortable with the idea of an implanted chip if not medically necessary. It’s one thing to wear glasses or a watch; it’s another to undergo elective brain surgery to augment your abilities. Cost will also be prohibitive for a long time – initially BCIs could cost tens of thousands of dollars (Neuralink hasn’t named a price, but the surgical and hardware costs won’t be cheap). Moreover, any high-profile failure (e.g. a person getting hurt by a BCI, or a device being hacked) could set back public trust significantly. At least in the medium term, BCIs will likely be adopted in specific niches: medicine and assistive tech (where the benefit is life-changing), the military (which is researching BCIs for pilots or soldier communication), and maybe extreme tech enthusiasts. For general consumers, expect BCIs to augment smartphones or AR glasses in the 2030s or 2040s, rather than wholesale replace them. Even then, it might be framed not as “get a chip to replace your phone” but more like “neural prosthetics” that improve memory, focus, or other abilities, indirectly reducing the need for external devices.

Privacy & Ethics: If AR glasses raised eyebrows about privacy, brain-computer interfaces blow the issue wide open. We’re talking about devices that literally tap into your neural activity. The data a BCI could collect – your brainwaves, patterns of neural firing – is extraordinarily personal and sensitive. In fact, neuroethicists have started calling for a notion of “cognitive liberty” or “mental privacy” rights, recognizing that thoughts deserve special protection. The worst-case scenarios sound like dystopian fiction: hackers “brain-hacking” into a BCI to steal your private thoughts or implant their own, employers requiring a brain implant for enhanced productivity monitoring, or governments spying on citizens via neural data. While those scenarios are not possible with today’s BCIs (which are very limited in what they read), the concerns are serious enough that policymakers are already acting. As of 2023, at least 13 U.S. states have preemptively banned mandatory human microchip implants (to ensure no employer or organization can force people to get chipped) govtech.com. The World Economic Forum warns that BCIs raise “serious cybersecurity and privacy concerns, such as brain tapping, misleading stimuli attacks and adversarial attacks on machine learning components” weforum.org. To break that down: a malicious actor could try to intercept your brain signals (“brain tapping”) to infer things about you without consent weforum.org. For example, researchers have shown it’s possible to guess a person’s PIN code or what they’re looking at from brainwave patterns under certain conditions. An attacker could also feed false signals or stimuli into a BCI (“misleading stimuli attack”), theoretically even inducing certain emotions or responses without you realizing it weforum.org. And of course any AI that processes neural data could be tricked by adversarial inputs, leading it to misinterpret your thoughts. Beyond hacking, there are profound ethical questions: What if a company records your neural data – who owns that data? Could it be sold or misused? Do you have the right to modify your own mental state using a device, and do others have the right to compel you to? Scholars draw parallels to the Cold War days of CIA mind-control experiments, noting that “it’s not implausible that in the future there will be actors…who might attempt the same but with improved technology” news.harvard.edu. As one Harvard report put it, with BCIs we get “dangerously close to inadvertently enabling [the] eliciting of information from subjects who are not willfully cooperating” news.harvard.edu – essentially reading thoughts of someone who hasn’t consented, a scenario that was science fiction in the past. All of this means privacy, security, and ethics are the biggest hurdles for brain-tech, arguably even more than the technology itself. Any future “brain device for consumers” would need extremely robust encryption, transparent user consent policies, perhaps even physical switches to disconnect it, and likely new laws to protect citizens’ mental privacy. Without such safeguards, BCIs could face public rejection or misuse that far overshadows their benefits.

Barriers to Entry: The technical and regulatory barriers for BCIs are enormous. Technically, invasive BCIs need to be much safer (minimally invasive surgery, low infection risk, long-term stability in the brain) and much more capable (higher bandwidth, able to write information into the brain not just read, etc.) to be attractive beyond medical necessity. This will require years of R&D in materials (for biocompatible electrodes), surgical robotics (for precise, quick implantation), and AI algorithms (to decode neural signals reliably). Non-invasive BCIs face a different technical barrier: overcoming the skull’s filtering of signals and noise to get useful high-resolution data. New methods like functional ultrasound or infrared might improve that, but none have matched implant precision yet. On the regulatory side, any device that interfaces with the brain will be heavily regulated by health authorities (FDA in the U.S., etc.) as it should be. Gaining approval for general use will be slow and scrutinized – expect BCIs to go through the medical device pathway and perhaps remain prescription-only if they carry significant risks. Society’s acceptance is another barrier: fear and stigma could slow adoption (some people find the idea of a brain chip unsettling regardless of utility). Cost, as mentioned, is a barrier; so is the availability of skilled neurosurgeons if mass implantation was ever a thing. And consider liability and insurance: who is responsible if something goes wrong with a brain implant? These non-technical factors are daunting. Finally, there’s a fundamental use-case barrier: the smartphone (and AR glasses, wearables, etc.) might simply be “good enough” for most people that a brain implant isn’t worth it. Unless BCIs offer absolutely transformative benefits (e.g. instant knowledge upload or telepathy-level communication), the vast majority might prefer external devices they can easily upgrade or remove. So, while BCIs are a thrilling area of innovation and will no doubt change lives in medicine, as a smartphone successor for everyone, they face the longest odds. Even Elon Musk quipped that with BCIs we would “telepathically communicate, but I might be dead by then,” acknowledging the timeframe could be quite extended. Most experts see the 2040s or beyond for any mainstream brain-computer interface use, and many remain skeptical it will ever fully replace handheld devices – it could end up being one option among many for those who choose it.

Smart Wearables: Taking the Phone’s Features to Our Wrists, Ears and Eyes

While AR glasses and brain chips grab headlines, an arguably quieter revolution has already been occurring on our wrists, fingers, and ears. Smart wearables – devices like smartwatches, fitness bands, smart rings, and wireless earbuds – have steadily become commonplace and increasingly capable. In 2024 alone, over 534 million wearable devices were shipped worldwide industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com, a massive figure that shows how quickly these gadgets have proliferated. This category even overlaps with others (for instance, AR glasses can be considered wearables too), but broadly it means any on-body accessory packed with sensors or smarts. Tech companies see wearables as an extension – and perhaps one day a replacement – of many smartphone functions. As evidence, Apple’s wearables business (Apple Watch and AirPods) has grown so large that its annual revenue is now on par with a Fortune 100 company industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. These products started as iPhone accessories, but are increasingly able to stand on their own for many tasks.

Usability & Current Role: Today’s wearables already handle a surprising amount of what we use phones for. Smartwatches like the Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch can send and receive texts, make phone calls, run apps, display maps, and of course tell time – all on your wrist. They excel at health and fitness tracking (heart rate, exercise, sleep, ECGs, etc.) in ways smartphones never could, thanks to direct contact sensors. High-end smartwatches now often include cellular connectivity, meaning you can leave your phone at home and still get calls/messages on the watch. Many people already do short outings or workouts using just their watch and wireless earbuds, enjoying a feeling of freedom from the phone. Wireless earbuds (e.g. Apple AirPods, Google Pixel Buds) have essentially become “ear-worn computers.” They use built-in microphones and voice assistants to let you ask questions or give commands on the go. Modern earbuds offer features like real-time language translation (one person speaks and you hear the translation in your ear) and context-aware information via voice industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. Meanwhile, specialized wearables like smart rings (Oura Ring, etc.) track health metrics and can even serve as authentication tokens or payment devices with a wave of your hand. We also see smart glasses (non-AR) like Bose Frames or Amazon Echo Frames that play audio and take voice commands, essentially turning eyeglasses into a Bluetooth headset. And there are experiments with smart clothing (jackets with gesture sensors, shoes that track steps, etc.). Collectively, these wearables are creating a web of devices on our bodies that together can cover many functions of a smartphone.

Could wearables replace the phone entirely? Not entirely yet – a watch screen is small for reading emails or watching videos, and typing on a tiny screen (or not having a screen at all, in the case of earbuds) can be cumbersome. Most wearables still tether to a phone for heavy tasks or initial setup. However, the gap is closing as wearables get more powerful. The Apple Watch’s processor and storage now rival older smartphones, and each generation becomes more independent. In fact, the original Apple Watch (2015) was positioned as a companion, but by 2023 Apple was quietly transforming it into a standalone computer: newer models can download music, run machine learning algorithms on-device, and even transcribe speech to text on the watch itself industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. Google’s Pixel Watch and others are following suit. With the addition of generative AI, we can envision wearables becoming even smarter assistants. Concept demos already show AI running locally in earbuds to whisper answers to you or coach you in real time industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. Imagine attending a meeting and your earbud’s AI quietly provides context on who’s speaking or definitions of jargon you hear, without you doing a thing – that’s the kind of “ambient helper” scenario on the horizon. Or a future smartwatch that proactively manages your day: an AI that notices you’re getting stressed and suggests a break, or automatically handles simple text replies for you. In the post-smartphone discussion, many believe wearables will carry forward the torch of personal computing but in a more discreet, personalized way: “always on, always with you,” but not always demanding your full attention industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. A tech columnist quipped that our current phone habit keeps us hunched over glass screens, whereas wearables could free us to interact more naturally while technology runs in the background. industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com

Adoption Potential: Wearables have already achieved significant adoption – for example, it’s estimated about one-third of U.S. adults now wear a smartwatch or fitness band (and higher in some other countries). The trajectory is upward as devices get more capable and fashionable. The convenience of having key features on your body is a strong driver. Many users find they check their phone less if they have a smartwatch that can show notifications and let them triage without digging out the phone. That reduces “phone addiction” somewhat and is a selling point. Wearables also tap into the huge health & wellness market, which brings in demographics that might not care about tech per se but want to monitor their health. Looking forward, we could see wearables gradually eat more into smartphone usage: perhaps your day-to-day quick tasks (messaging, payments, ID, navigation) get handled by a combo of watch + earbuds + smart glasses, and you only use a smartphone for heavy content like long videos, big spreadsheets, or photo editing. If AR glasses take off, they will likely work in tandem with other wearables. Some futurists envision that the traditional smartphone might “split” into multiple wearable parts – a display in your glasses, a microphone/assistant in your ear, a compute hub on your wrist or in your pocket, and so on, all seamlessly connected. Notably, that’s the approach companies like Apple seem to be hedging for: “if something will replace the iPhone, we’ll be the ones to build it”, said one analyst of Apple’s strategy, pointing to its growing array of wearables and now the Vision Pro headset industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. The fact that Apple’s Watch and AirPods keep users tied into its ecosystem “without always needing an iPhone in hand” industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com speaks volumes. It suggests that even now, a significant chunk of interaction has moved off the phone to wearables. As those wearables become more autonomous, the phone’s role could diminish to just a pocket server or eventually disappear. Already, some younger consumers are growing up with smartwatches and might not see the need for a separate phone if the watch can handle it.

Privacy Implications: Wearables come with their own mix of privacy issues. On the plus side, because wearables are personal devices (worn on you), they can sometimes enhance privacy by reducing how often you display private info on a big phone screen in public. For example, glancing at a message on your smartwatch or hearing it via earbud can be more private than pulling out your phone where others might shoulder-surf. However, wearables also collect very intimate data, especially health-related. Your heart rate, sleep patterns, menstrual cycle (for women using cycle tracking), even blood oxygen and soon blood pressure/glucose – all this can be monitored. This raises concerns about how that data is stored and used. There have already been cases where fitness tracker data was subpoenaed in court, or where insurance companies offer incentives to get your wearable data (raising fears of discrimination based on health metrics). Data security is paramount; a breach of your wearable’s cloud account could reveal sensitive health info or location history. Another aspect is audio and voice privacy: smart earbuds and voice assistants are “always listening” for wake words, which means they technically have microphones active that could pick up conversations. Tech firms insist the data is processed locally or anonymized, but skepticism remains. For instance, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant have had controversies over contractors reviewing voice snippets. A wearable like the Humane AI Pin (a clip-on device) even has a camera and mic that’s always poised to listen/see when needed industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com, which as noted can make people around uneasy if they feel potentially recorded industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. Location tracking is another concern – a smartwatch with GPS knows where you go, which is great for mapping your runs but also creates a log of your movements. If accessed by malicious parties or overly intrusive apps, that could be misused. Finally, consent and transparency matter: if your wearable is measuring something, you should know and agree to it. There have been debates, for example, about workplace wellness programs using wearables to monitor employees’ health or productivity. Privacy advocates urge that as wearables blend into everyday life, users must retain control over their data and informed consent about what’s collected. Strong encryption on devices, on-device processing (to avoid cloud where possible), and privacy regulations (like GDPR classifying health data as highly sensitive) all play a role in protecting users. Compared to brain implants or AR glasses, wearables are relatively well-trodden ground privacy-wise, but as they get more advanced (e.g. an AI that listens to everything you hear to give you tips), new frontiers of privacy questions will emerge.

Barriers to Entry: For wearables to completely take over smartphone duties, a few barriers need to be addressed. Battery life is a constant battle – packing many sensors and radios into tiny watches or earbuds means frequent charging (most smartwatches barely last 1–2 days, earbuds maybe a few hours of continuous use). Improvements in battery tech or power efficiency will be needed so that, for example, your future AR contact lenses or smart rings can run all day. User interface limitations are another barrier: small devices have limited input methods. Companies are experimenting with voice control, gesture control (e.g. flick your fingers to scroll on a ring), or even projecting a virtual screen (the Humane AI Pin projects onto your hand for a quick interface industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com). These need to be refined to be truly convenient. Interoperability is a challenge too – for a seamless post-phone setup, all your wearables and ambient devices should work together. Right now, that works best if they’re all in one ecosystem (e.g. Apple Watch + AirPods + HomePod), but across ecosystems it’s hit-or-miss. Standards for device communication (Matter for smart home, Bluetooth improvements, etc.) will help tie wearables into a cohesive network. Social factors: Wearables, especially those visible like glasses or certain fashion-centric devices, need to be appealing to wear. Tech companies have learned to collaborate with fashion designers (Fitbit made pendant-style trackers, luxury brands make smartwatch cases, etc.) to avoid the techie look. If wearables are clunky or unattractive, people won’t use them enough to replace phones. Cost and accessibility: while basic fitness bands are cheap, the more advanced wearables can be pricey (a flagship smartwatch can cost $400–$500, high-end earbuds $250+). Having to own multiple devices (watch + buds + etc.) might be a financial barrier compared to one smartphone. Over time, prices usually drop with scale, but in the short term the cost of a multi-wearable setup could exceed a phone, limiting it to enthusiasts. Finally, there’s a psychological barrier: our phones are like security blankets – they do it all. Transitioning to using several wearables and trusting them to be in sync might feel uncomfortable or complicated for many. People might worry about losing one piece (say you forget your watch – does that mean you’re “phoneless”?). It will take design excellence to make the multi-device experience feel as seamless as the one-device experience we have now. If these barriers are overcome, wearables can gradually phase into the role of “primary interface,” potentially making the traditional smartphone less central or even obsolete for some users.

Ambient Computing: The Smartphone Fades into the Environment

Beyond individual devices like glasses or watches, there’s a broader concept shaping the post-smartphone era: ambient computing. This refers to a world where computing is woven into the environment all around us – in our homes, cars, workplaces, and public spaces – rather than concentrated in a personal device. In an ambient computing scenario, you don’t have a single gadget that you go to for all tasks. Instead, many devices and sensors collectively provide a continuous, integrated computing experience. The original vision for this is often traced to futurists like Mark Weiser, who coined “ubiquitous computing,” and it’s now being actively pursued by companies like Google, Amazon, and others. Google’s Rick Osterloh described it as “helpful computing can be all around you…ambient computing. Your devices work together with services and AI, so help is anywhere you want it, and it’s fluid. The technology just fades into the background when you don’t need it. The devices aren’t the center of the system, you are.” stratechery.com. In other words, technology everywhere, but almost invisible – the opposite of everyone staring at a phone.

We’re already seeing early forms of ambient computing in our daily lives:

Smart speakers and voice assistants: Over the past 5-8 years, devices like Amazon Echo (Alexa), Google Nest Hub (Assistant), and Apple HomePod (Siri) have brought always-listening AI helpers into millions of homes. As of the mid-2020s, roughly a quarter to a third of U.S. households have a smart speaker of some kind industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com, and similar numbers are reported in parts of Europe and Asia. These let people do things like control lights, ask questions, or play music just by speaking into the air. That’s ambient computing in action – you don’t need to pick up a phone to get an answer or command a gadget, you just talk and the environment responds. However, first-generation voice assistants have been fairly limited (great for setting a timer or getting the weather, not great at complex tasks) industryexaminer.com.
Smart home devices: Beyond speakers, many homes now have thermostats (Nest, Ecobee), doorbells (Ring, Nest Doorbell), security cameras, appliances (smart TVs, smart fridges) and more that are connected and can work in concert. For example, when you say “good night” to your voice assistant, it might turn off the lights, lock the doors, set the alarm, adjust the thermostat and start playing white noise – a coordinated action across multiple devices. Your home, in effect, becomes the computer interface.
Automotive AI: Cars are becoming an extension of ambient computing. By 2025, manufacturers like General Motors are integrating AI assistants (based on tech like ChatGPT) into upcoming car models industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. Mercedes-Benz has trialed a version of its in-car voice assistant that taps ChatGPT for more natural dialogues industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. The goal is that you can converse with your car: ask it to explain a dashboard warning, get it to make a calendar appointment, or even have it help you negotiate a route or restaurant choice in a human-like manner. Looking toward 2030, your car might effectively be “a rolling AI computer, with the windshield as a display, your voice as the interface, and an AI coordinating navigation, entertainment, and vehicle functions in the background.” industryexaminer.com This paints a picture where you don’t need a phone mount in your car anymore – the car itself is connected to your digital life.

The late 2023/2024 timeframe brought a big acceleration to ambient computing with the advent of generative AI (the tech behind ChatGPT, etc.). Companies are now upgrading voice assistants to be far smarter and more conversational. For instance, Amazon announced a major Alexa overhaul using a custom large language model so that Alexa can handle much more complex and nuanced requests industryexaminer.com. Instead of the stilted canned responses, you might say, “Alexa, I have chicken and bell peppers, what can I cook tonight?” and get a detailed suggestion with a recipe – and if you have smart kitchen appliances, Alexa might even preheat the oven to the right temperature for you industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. Google is doing similarly with its Assistant (leveraging its Bard AI). Ambient AI is about these assistants not just waiting for single commands, but maintaining context and engaging in dialogues. We can expect our homes to feel much “smarter” by the late 2020s: lights that adjust based on not just time, but your mood (sensed via wearables), or a home that reminds you “you left the garage open” after checking various sensors. Even outside the home, ambient computing might mean walking into an office or café and having screens or speakers recognize you (securely) and assist you – perhaps your digital profile carries with you and any nearby interface can become “your device” temporarily.

Where does this leave smartphones? In an ideal ambient scenario, you wouldn’t need to constantly check a phone because “the world around you becomes the interface.” Information could be presented on whatever surface is handy (say, projected on a wall or shown through AR glasses), and input could be through voice, gesture, or intelligent automation. The smartphone becomes just one node in a larger network – or possibly gets subsumed entirely by that network. For example, instead of using a smartphone to pay at a store, you might have a combination of face recognition and a voice confirmation to an ambient assistant handling the payment. Instead of needing a phone to navigate, your car and glasses and watch collectively handle it and just tell you where to go. Google has explicitly said they see the future as ambient, where they might not need to rely on Android phones as the primary access to Google services stratechery.com stratechery.com. “It’s even more useful when computing is anywhere you need it, always available to help,” Osterloh explained stratechery.com. This approach doesn’t directly “kill” the smartphone in a head-on way (like AR glasses or BCIs aim to), but rather dissolves its importance. As tech analyst Ben Thompson observed, smartphones are so versatile that any single alternative device struggles to cover all use cases – but ambient computing offers a larger-than-phone vision by making the smartphone just one of many access points stratechery.com. In fact, in a fully realized ambient world, you might still own a smartphone, but you use it far less, because you can access the same functions through voice or other devices around you stratechery.com.

Adoption & Readiness: Many pieces of ambient computing are already in place, but true seamless integration is a work in progress. Adoption of smart speakers and home IoT devices has been brisk, but we’ve also seen some disenchantment – people complain that voice assistants are too limited or sometimes frustrating. The next-gen AI upgrades in 2024–2025 are aimed at addressing that, making these assistants actually useful for more complex tasks and multi-step operations. If that succeeds, adoption could spike again as people find the assistants genuinely helpful. Also, interconnectivity standards are improving (e.g. the new Matter standard for smart home ensures devices from different brands can talk to each other). By 2025, we have a much more mature IoT ecosystem than five years prior – so a lot of the plumbing for ambient computing is getting sorted out. Another factor is AI personalization: companies are figuring out how to have one AI agent follow you across devices. OpenAI and Jony Ive’s collaboration is rumored to be exploring a “personal AI device” that might serve as your everywhere-companion industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. In an ambient world, you might have a personal AI profile in the cloud that any interface (your car, your fridge, a public kiosk) can retrieve with your permission to assist you, almost like a digital butler that’s always with you.

A concrete manifestation of this in 2023 was the Humane AI Pin, a small screenless wearable. You clip it to your shirt, and it uses cameras, mics, and projectors to act as an AI assistant that’s always with you – you interact via voice and it can even project info onto your hand temporarily industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. The AI Pin garnered a lot of buzz as a concept of not having to carry a phone at all, but instead letting this ambient wearable handle things. However, early reviews noted it “does a lot of smartphone things – but looks nothing like a smartphone” industryexaminer.com. Ultimately, it struggled with practical issues: poor battery life, heat, limited functionality and a high $699 price, leading to very few sales. By mid-2024 the AI Pin project floundered and its assets were acquired by another company reuters.com. This goes to show that while the ideas are exciting, execution matters. Another startup, Rabbit, introduced a similar AI companion device (the Rabbit r1) and actually sold over 100,000 units, but reviewers noted it still couldn’t match the breadth of a smartphone’s abilities reuters.com. These first attempts highlight that ambient computing needs to overcome hardware and AI limitations to truly replace what phones do.

Privacy Implications: Ambient computing essentially takes all the concerns we have with individual devices and multiplies them, because now you might have sensors everywhere. The idea of an AI that is “always listening, always watching” in the background raises obvious privacy red flags. Smart homes and ambient devices can potentially collect audio from conversations, video of your living spaces, biometrics from wearables, location data from all over, and even information about the people you interact with. If a single device being hacked is bad, the thought of an interconnected ambient network being breached is even scarier (imagine a hacker gaining access to your entire house’s IoT – seeing through your security cams, talking through your voice assistant, etc.). There’s also the worry of mass surveillance if ambient sensors become ubiquitous in public – think of storefronts with facial recognition or cities with smart infrastructure that track movements. The balance between convenience and privacy will be intensely tested. As one expert said, ambient systems must ensure “the technology fades into the background when you don’t need it” stratechery.com – implying they should not be quietly logging data when not actively in use. Achieving that will require rigorous privacy-by-design: clear indications when sensors are on, data minimization (devices processing locally whenever possible), and giving users granular control. Already, regulators are gearing up: Europe’s proposed AI Act would place tight controls on AI surveillance and require transparency (e.g. if an AI system is interacting with you, you should be aware) industryexaminer.com. In the U.S., while no comprehensive federal law exists yet, the Federal Trade Commission has warned it will act on IoT devices that violate consumer privacy or security. Users themselves are mixed – many love the convenience of saying “Hey Google” to turn off the lights, but they bristle at the idea that Google might use recordings of their home life to target ads. Trust will be crucial: big tech will need to prove that ambient devices can be trusted as much as, or more than, our personal smartphones (which, at least, we can turn off or put in a drawer). With ambient computing, you can’t exactly turn off your entire environment. One proposed approach is having a central AI or hub that acts as a privacy guardian, mediating what data flows where (for example, your home AI might anonymize or locally handle as much as possible, only sending essentials to the cloud). Another is edge computing – doing the AI processing on local devices (like a home server) so raw data never leaves your vicinity. In summary, ambient computing offers incredible convenience, but it literally hits close to home, so expect privacy to be a make-or-break factor. As an IBM researcher quipped, “In ambient computing, the user must remain the center, not the data.” This echoes Osterloh’s line that “devices aren’t the center…you are” stratechery.com, meaning the tech should serve us without compromising us.

Barriers and Challenges: Key barriers to true ambient computing include interoperability, AI capability, and user habit. Interoperability is being tackled by industry alliances (as mentioned, standards like Matter for smart home, etc.), but it’s a slow road. Many people currently experience frustration that their connected doorbell doesn’t easily talk to their TV or that they need separate apps for everything. The vision of ambient computing requires seamless integration – a lot of backend work to unify ecosystems or at least bridge them. AI capability is another: today’s AI, while advanced, can still misinterpret or fail in unanticipated ways (“Sorry, I didn’t get that” – we’ve all heard that from voice assistants). For ambient adoption, the AI needs to be reliable and context-aware. It should know not to interrupt you during dinner with a non-urgent notification, but absolutely to alert you if, say, it senses a safety issue. Achieving that kind of context sensitivity is hard; it involves not just voice AI but also sensors and predictive algorithms working in concert. There’s also the risk of AI giving wrong answers or acting on incorrect data – e.g. an AI assistant might misunderstand a command and unlock the door for the wrong person. These issues must be ironed out to build trust. User habits and comfort are significant too: people are used to taking out their phone to do things; shifting to a mode where you speak into the air or just trust that devices will do things for you can be an adjustment. Some might feel self-conscious talking to an empty room, or uneasy that “something is watching.” Generationally, younger folks may adapt faster (already many kids talk to Alexa as if it’s second nature), while older users might stick to manual control. Cost and complexity could also slow things – outfitting a fully smart home or car can be expensive, and not everyone lives in a space they can modify freely (e.g. renters). Then there’s reliability and infrastructure: ambient computing heavily relies on robust connectivity (Wi-Fi, 5G) everywhere. If your smart home or city AI breaks down when the internet is out, that’s a problem. Edge computing can alleviate that by localizing function, but not all tasks can be local. Finally, one could argue lack of a clear business model is a barrier: smartphone dominance was driven by the app economy and direct device sales. Ambient computing blurs those lines – companies will need to find how to monetize services that are in the environment (likely through subscriptions, data services, or increased user lock-in to ecosystems). If the incentives aren’t aligned (e.g. companies push ambient devices primarily to harvest data for ads), that could conflict with user trust. Navigating these challenges will determine how quickly and widely ambient computing fulfills its promise.

The Road Ahead: Will Smartphones Really Disappear?

Considering all these parallel developments – AR glasses, brain interfaces, wearables, ambient AI – one might wonder, what’s the endgame? Is the smartphone truly on its way to extinction, or will it co-evolve alongside these new technologies?

Most experts believe the smartphone will not vanish overnight, but rather gradually fade in prominence as other interfaces rise. There’s a telling analogy: the desktop PC didn’t disappear when smartphones arrived; it just took a backseat for many consumers, being used for heavy-duty work but not day-to-day communication. Similarly, we may still have smartphones in our pockets in 2030 and beyond, but we might pull them out far less frequently. A report on future computing trends depicted a likely scenario by 2030 where “the post-smartphone era means personal computing is everywhere and nowhere. It’s personal not because you hold it in your hand, but because it’s all around you” industryexaminer.com. In that imagined 2030 day-in-the-life, glasses, wearables, home and car AI seamlessly coordinate, and the user doesn’t think in terms of “using a phone” – they just engage with their tasks and the nearest device handles it industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com. The smartphone in that scenario becomes akin to what the flip-phone or PC is now: still available, but not the primary go-to for the average task.

That said, there is healthy skepticism about the pace of this transition. Smartphones are incredibly versatile and entrenched – any would-be successor must cover an “impossible number of use cases” to truly replace them stratechery.com. Your phone is your camera, bank, ticket, communicator, entertainment center, navigator, and more, all in one. It’s a big ask for a single new device to take over all of that. This is why the future may be multi-device (glasses + watch + etc. sharing the load) rather than one gadget replacing the phone one-to-one. Tech analyst Ben Thompson commented that alternatives like AR glasses or wearables often “feel smaller” in scope than the smartphone’s impact, whereas the concept of ambient computing “seems larger than the smartphone reality we live in” because it can envelop all use cases by leveraging many devices together stratechery.com. In other words, the smartphone might be outclassed not by a new phone, but by a new paradigm of computing that doesn’t center on one device.

Industry predictions vary on timelines:

As noted, Zuckerberg is aiming for the early 2030s for AR glasses to start taking the smartphone’s place glassalmanac.com. Meta’s internal roadmap reportedly targets a first generation of true AR glasses around mid-decade (2025–2027) for developers and a more advanced, slimmer version by 2030 for consumers. If those succeed, by 2035 a significant number of people might choose glasses over phones.
Apple is more tight-lipped on timing, but by investing heavily now in wearables and Vision Pro, it’s implicitly preparing for a post-iPhone era within, say, 10–15 years. Some Apple watchers speculate the company would like to have AR glasses ready to sell by the late 2020s, even if initially as an accessory, and then gradually make them indispensable by 2030s – at which point the iPhone could be repositioned or even phased out. (Apple’s own Eddy Cue suggesting iPhones might be obsolete in 10 years moneycontrol.com is striking, given it came from an Apple exec.)
Analysts at firms like Gartner and IDC haven’t pinned an exact date on “the end of smartphones,” but they note plateauing sales and the rise of other devices as an indicator that we’re transitioning from the smartphone era to something new. IDC’s vice-president in one interview said we’re entering a “mixed computing era” where phones, wearables, and ambient devices all play roles, with no single device dominating as smartphones did in the 2010s.
Optimists like Elon Musk throw out aggressive timelines like “within 10 years” for brain chips competing with phones moneycontrol.com, but many neuroscientists would push that farther out, maybe 20–30 years, if ever, for mainstream non-medical adoption.

It’s also possible that smartphones themselves will evolve and blend into the next paradigm. For example, tomorrow’s “phone” might not look like a slab of glass; it could be a flexible wearable display, or a small computing core that anchors your personal network of gadgets. Some futurists talk about “modular” personal tech – you carry a tiny hub (for compute/connectivity) and everything else is wireless interfaces (glasses, keyboards, etc. that connect to it as needed). In such a case, do we consider the hub the “smartphone” or do we retire the term entirely?

From a societal viewpoint, a lot will depend on consumer preferences and trust. If AR glasses remain expensive or socially awkward, people will stick to phones. If brain interfaces remain too risky, they’ll remain niche. If voice assistants don’t get truly reliable, users will default to screens. On the flip side, if a company cracks the code on a convenient, stylish pair of AR glasses that solve real problems (and maybe subsidizes them to widespread use, like carriers did with smartphones), we could see a swift shift. Remember, it took only about 10 years for smartphones to go from 0 to ~80% adoption in many countries industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com – once a technology finds its footing, change can happen fast.

Leading tech companies are positioning themselves for all scenarios. Apple is diversifying beyond iPhone, so it’s not caught off-guard. Google is pushing its services to every form factor – if people stop using Google on phones but use it in cars, homes, or glasses, Google still wins. Meta is investing in XR to avoid being locked out of the next hardware wave (they famously missed mobile hardware, relying on their apps on others’ phones). Amazon is embedding Alexa in everything from microwaves to eyeglass frames, to be ready if voice/ambient takes off. Microsoft, interestingly, is focusing on an “AI everywhere” strategy (their CEO Satya Nadella has spoken about not being hung up on mobile market share because the future is cloud+AI accessible on any device). And newer players like OpenAI with Ive are trying to leapfrog straight to a new category of AI-centric gadget. This ferment of activity is good for consumers – it means we have an ecosystem race to invent something better than the smartphone, and competition should drive innovation.

In conclusion, the smartphone’s dominance is beginning to wane, not because it failed – in fact, because it succeeded so well that it saturated its market and sparked the hunt for “what’s next.” Augmented reality glasses promise to bring our screens into the world around us, wearables promise constant convenience and personal assistance, ambient computing promises an invisible network of help everywhere, and even brain interfaces glimmer on the distant horizon as a radical leap. Each comes with unique advantages and serious challenges. It’s likely that no single technology will singularly replace the smartphone; rather, our beloved do-it-all gadget will be unbundled into a constellation of devices and services. In a sense, the smartphone converged all devices into one, and now we may be entering a period of divergence, where different tools handle different aspects more efficiently (with AI as the glue tying it all together).

One thing is certain: the 2020s will be an exciting time to watch (and experience) this shift. As consumers, we might soon have to decide whether to put on glasses in the morning instead of pocketing a phone, or whether talking to walls feels as normal as texting. Change can be daunting, but also empowering. A tech columnist writing about the decline of phones noted that for years our posture has been head-down, shoulders-hunched, staring at phones – but the next wave could free us to look up and engage with the world more naturally, with technology seamlessly assisting in the background stratechery.com industryexaminer.com. That’s a future many find appealing.

Until then, you might want to hang onto your smartphone – but also keep an eye (or perhaps an AR-enhanced eye) on what’s coming next.

Sources:

industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – “The Dawn of the Post-Smartphone Era” (2025) – on slowing smartphone sales and longer replacement cycles.
reuters.com: Reuters – “OpenAI buys Ive’s startup” (May 2025) – quote from Sam Altman & Jony Ive about legacy products and designing beyond current gadgets.
glassalmanac.com: Glass Almanac (via Forbes) – “Zuckerberg: Smart Glasses to replace phones by 2030s” (2024) – Zuckerberg’s keynote prediction of AR glasses replacing smartphones.
ynetnews.com: Ynetnews – “Apple racing to replace iPhone with smart glasses” (2024) – Tim Cook’s view that AR (overlaying reality) is the future over VR.
ynetnews.com ynetnews.com: Ynetnews – same as above – on Vision Pro’s commercial failure due to weight, cost, lack of apps, and Apple’s continued AR glasses plans.
glassalmanac.com: Glass Almanac (via Forbes) – description of Apple Vision Pro AR demo (maps and messages in real-world view).
glassalmanac.com: Glass Almanac (via Forbes) – industry experts on smart glasses as personal assistants (translation, reminders, gaming) and Meta’s investment.
industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – “Post-Smartphone Era” – on Apple Vision Pro’s capabilities (spatial computing with floating apps, new interface).
industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – analysts’ view that by 2030 AR glasses might look like normal eyewear and do all smartphone tasks.
emarketer.com emarketer.com: eMarketer report excerpt (2025) – noting smart glasses as potential smartphone successors and AR usage surpassing 30% of population by 2025.
industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – Meta, Google, others pouring billions into AR/MR; Google/Samsung partnership on XR platform.
industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – Apple’s wearables revenue (Watch + AirPods) rivaling Fortune 100 companies, keeping users tied in without needing iPhone in hand.
industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – global wearable shipments 2024 over 534 million (watches, bands, earbuds, AR glasses, rings).
industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – examples of wearables incorporating AI: Apple Watch transcribing speech on-device, earbuds offering real-time translation and voice assistant access.
industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – “bottom line: wearables poised to carry forward many tasks phones do, in a background, context-aware way… imagine a future Watch with smart AI assistant coaching you through your day without pulling out a phone.”
industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – note on Humane AI Pin and similar wearable assistants being “always on, always with you” as less intrusive phone alternatives.
reuters.com: Reuters – OpenAI/Ive article – Humane AI Pin struggled with battery, heat, costs; HP acquired its assets, effectively ending the product.
reuters.com: Reuters – Rabbit r1 device sold 100k+ units but reviewers say still limited versus smartphones.
moneycontrol.com moneycontrol.com: Moneycontrol – “Will Neuralink replace iPhone?” (May 2025) – Apple’s Eddy Cue: “You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now… AI opening door to new devices.” Musk’s one-word response “Neuralink” on X/Twitter.
moneycontrol.com moneycontrol.com: Moneycontrol – Elon Musk’s view that a Neuralink brain chip could make phones and screens unnecessary, as Neuralink begins human trials for paralyzed patients.
news.harvard.edu: Harvard Gazette – “Life-changing brain tech…” (Mar 2025) – First person (N. Arbaugh) received Neuralink implant Jan 2024, enabled him to control a computer mouse and play online chess via thought.
foxnews.com: Fox News – “Paradromics brain implant” (June 2025) – Paradromics successfully implanted its Connexus BCI in a human during epilepsy surgery, proving it can record brain signals; moving to clinical trials.
weforum.org weforum.org: World Economic Forum – “Brain-computer interface risks” (June 2024) – BCIs raise serious cybersecurity/privacy concerns like “brain tapping” (intercepting neural signals to infer emotions, beliefs) and other attacks.
news.harvard.edu: Harvard Gazette – Quote by Lukas Meier warning that it’s not implausible future actors (state or private) might attempt mind control with advanced tech, drawing parallels to MKUltra.
news.harvard.edu: Harvard Gazette – Meier’s quote on advanced BCI capabilities bringing us close to enabling extraction of information from uncooperative subjects (implicating mental privacy threats).
govtech.com: GovTech article reference (2023) – noting 13 U.S. states have banned mandatory microchip implants, anticipating ethical issues with human-chipping.
stratechery.com: Stratechery (Ben Thompson) – “Google and Ambient Computing” (2019) – Google’s vision via Rick Osterloh: in mobile era phones are useful, but “even more useful when computing is anywhere you need it… ambient computing… devices aren’t the center, you are.”
stratechery.com: Stratechery – Commentary that ambient computing is a larger vision than just AR or wearables, and it leverages smartphones rather than directly competing, making the smartphone one of many interfaces.
industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – penetration of smart speakers: by mid-2020s, in roughly 25–33% of U.S. households (and many abroad), though first-gen assistants were limited in capability.
industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – generative AI upgrades in late 2023: Amazon’s new Alexa LLM for more conversational, complex help (e.g. planning dinner with given ingredients).
industryexaminer.com industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – GM integrating ChatGPT in future cars; Mercedes testing ChatGPT in car assistant; by 2030 cars as rolling AI computers with voice interface and AR windshield.
industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – summary of ambient vision: instead of one do-it-all device, many devices/sensors (watch, glasses, car, home…) each specialized but connected via AI, so computing is ubiquitous yet invisible – a different mindset from the iPhone’s “one device to rule them all.”
industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – regulators likely to demand privacy/transparency for always-on sensors; mention of Europe’s AI Act requiring explainability and limits on sensitive data collection in AI systems.
stratechery.com: Stratechery – “The smartphone is so useful for so many things that any directly competitive tech would have to cover an impossible number of use cases to displace it” – highlighting why a single successor device is hard, and ambient computing leverages the phone rather than fights it.
industryexaminer.com: Industry Examiner – speculation that by the 2030s, phones could fade into background much as desktop PCs did, as new ambient and wearable experiences become more compelling.

Tags: Augmented Reality, Innovation, Technology