Goodbye smartphone, hello augmented reality

Mark your calendars: the countdown to the end of the smartphone - as we know it - has begun.This isn’t news. In fact, it’s been ticking down for some time now, heeded by the advance of augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence and other cognitive technologies. As technology continues to rapidly advance, the mediums that we use to communicate must evolve too, limiting the smartphone’s timeline. I believe we’ve seen the age of smartphones peak due to the changing nature of how we use these devices and the hardware’s struggle to keep up with emerging technology, namely AR and the many opportunities it offers to us all.In fact, it’s hardly relevant to call these devices ‘phones’ anymore as more and more Brits favour internet services over basic telephone use. In fact, an ecosystem of social media marketing is rapidly growing around various aspects of the smartphone excluding the phone: the camera, image editing suites, content sharing functions and social media. As digital marketing strategies prioritise creating visual assets, and with smartphones being used to deliver ever-increasing imagery and video content to consumers, a better description for these devices is ‘internet-enabled cameras,’ and the best use for them is creating and sharing content.