Five gadgets that won’t get killed by the cellphone

Not coming soon to your living room

As cell phones gain more and more power, it’s not surprising that people speculate on how they might obsolete existing devices. But such speculation by those who love gadgets sometimes fails to take into account human nature.

Today I’ll look at five technologies that won’t be replaced by cell phones in the foreseeable future. These are in addition to the PDA, Digital Camera, Landline phone and MP3 player whose exaggerated demise was covered yesterday in Five Gadgets that were killed by the cellphone (supposedly), but aren’t dead yet.

Large screen TV’s and home entertainment systems

Sure some cell phones can now play movies, but watching movies isn’t just about watching the movie – it’s a social experience. That’s why mega-movie complexes continue to spread across the landscape even as more and more people own large screen TV’s.

Alarm clocks

Just about every cell phone has had an alarm clock for years. People still buy alarm clocks like this one. Why? Because they have snooze buttons! Because when you groggily bash on the top of a cell phone, it goes flying across the room ending up with LCD juice spinning psychedelic colors across the shattered display. A real alarm clock will patiently take the abuse, and return to reliably buzz again and again.

Automobile GPS units

If you’ve ever used an auto GPS you will never want to drive without one. GPS units in cell phones are typically too expensive (they have monthly fees), too slow and not sensitive enough for full time use. While Garmin might change this with their forthcoming Nuvifone (if it ever ships), the real end of portable auto GPS units will be when every car comes with one built in.

Books

Read a book on a Cell phone? Don’t be absurd. Notebooks and computers – yes. Devices like Amazon’s Kindle? Absolutely. But cell phones aren’t going to even wound books, much less kill them

Video Game Consoles

There is plenty of gaming on cell phones. But many of today’s games, like movies, are theatrical experiences that need that big screen and wall busting sound. The PSP, Nintendo DS and similar handheld devices might get killed off by the cell phone. But the big consoles will live on.

It’s fun to speculate on the demise of a technology as Wired has done in the past few days. And there are technologies that have been and will continue to be killed off by having their features incorporated into other devices – the pager being a clear example. But in evaluating the likelihood of this happening to a technology, it’s not enough to consider whether such convergence between devices is possible. You have to consider how people relate to the technology. It's not enough to look at how those in their teens and twenties have adopted new technology in order to imagine the future. You have to consider how their relationship to technology is likely to change as they get older, marry, buy homes and have children. So let's not be too quick to write off today's devices. People have their own way of deciding what what technologies make sense, much to the frustration of pundits and marketers alike.