How will 2010 make our smartphones smarter?

2009 saw an influx of smartphones - the Palm Pre, the N900 and of course, saw the iPhone standing tall among all of them. However, despite the smartphone boom, change is coming and 2010 is going to see a lot of developments for next generation phones.

Well, like 2009, social media is going to play a big part - Twitter, Facebook will rule the roost but if you're not able to access any of the other popular network sites by the end of the year on your smartphone something is wrong.

However, as more and more people browse the net on their phone, on of the biggest game changers will be however the choice of interfaces and what proves to be popular.

Firefox, rapidly becoming Internet Explorer's biggest rival on home computers, have finally bought their browser to the mobile and, as you expect, features tabbed browsing, session syncing between mobile and desktops. Its ability to enable the user to include 40 additional add-ons also makes it the most customisable browser on a handset. One popular add-on is the one from Twitter that allows the user to tweet from the address bar.

Expect this to be one of the most popular downloads through the year, however it won't be alone.

Making a big splash at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Opera showcased their ultra-fast mobile browser Mini for the iPhone which is yet to be submitted for App Store approval. However, when it is, it is expected to be a big hit with claims that it will load pages up to six times faster than the iPhone's current Safari browser.

Earlier this month, Samsung announced its first bada powered phone, the S8500 Wave. The operating system has been developed by Samsung in an effort to take on Apple, Google and Windows in the mobile phone market.

The Flash issue

Of course, if more and more people want to browse online via their phones, then something is going to have to be done about making handsets play Flash videos. It has been estimated that between 35-40 percent of pages contain flashfiles, but as of yet no system can support Adobe be it legal reasons of otherwise. However, that could soon change.

Speaking to the BBC, David Wadhani, vice president of Adobe, said: "We'll see over the next 12 months Flash player 10.1, which is the same version of Flash on desktops, running on a variety of smartphones."

The mobile download of Flash 10.1 will be available from this summer on Android and Palm Pre handsets - and with other manufacturers to follow. Currently 19 out of the top 20 manufacturers have signed up to support the video and animation platform.

Who isn't on board? Apple, due to their ongoing dispute with Adobe, they have decided not to support the software which is sure to be a big blow to iPhone users.

Platform games

While Windows 7 was a big hit for Microsoft, their decision to release the platform for their Windows Phone 7 could go either way. No doubt bringing the personalised PC experience to the phone, as well as services such as Windows Media Player and the Zune music service as well as Xbox 360 content, it still remains to be seen whether Microsoft can secure a large portion of the smartphone market.

On top of that, Samsung are releasing their own OS system and Nokia's Symbian is going open-source enabling the creation of apps on a scale of iPhone's.

So smartphone users, what would you like to be able to do on your smartphone by the end of the year? What are you excited/worried about?

 

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