The pre-historic stone tool in your pocket

What you need to know:

  •  The phone is poised to have a similarly impactful and transformative effect on fifteen (15) global industries
  • iPads and other tablets are not true mobile devices, because they require one to be stationary to use them, and usually while the owner is comfortably seated

Last week, at the Mobile East Africa conference in Nairobi, world renowned mobile guru Tomi Ahonen, who Forbes called one of the most influential people in mobile, spoke in about the mobile phone’s place in history.

He said that that much like the stone tools, and the discovery of fire by early man, the mobile phone is a revolutionary device that is unprecedented in its scale, and which is more widespread than even pen & paper in terms of global reach.

He also cautioned on the history and ability of the mobile phone to transform industries like music and cameras. Apple’s iTunes was formed in 2001 and the first tiny camera phone was shipped in 2001. Today, iTunes is the world’s largest music store, while Samsung and Nokia are the world’s leading sellers of cameras, as old giants of that industry like Kodak and Minolta are no longer in that business. He said the phone is poised to have a similarly impactful and transformative effect on fifteen (15) global industries including advertising, credit, banking, insurance, maps, print publishing and broadcast media. So if you are in these industries, prepare for the coming change, and learn to how your customers may want to interact with you via phone.

STILL IN INFANCY

With true mobile phones only about twenty (20) years old, they are still in their infancy in terms of what they could possibly be in the future – and soon all these industries will be fighting to occupy fragments of their customers’ attention on tiny screens of phone device that are in their customers pockets. Already, scientists are in awe of how quickly two and five-year-old kids are able to get a quick grasp of today’s touch phones and other mobile devices, but we can only imagine what kinds of things future generations will be able to do with their phones.

Here in Kenya, we’ve seen the impact of mobile phones in terms of mobile money which is able to reach almost every adult subscriber no matter what part of the country they are located or what their economic class, sector or occupation is.

For many young subscribers, the mobile phone is a communication device and bank account. It also serves as their email tool, phone book, map, calendar, flashlight radio, camera, diary, newspaper, and photo album, among other uses. They have invested amounts greater than fifty thousand (50,000) to have these smart devices in their pockets. But Mr. Ahonen advises that given past trends where the technological processing power of devices double and the production cost halve every eighteen months, then by 2019, such phones can be anyone’s hands for less about eight hundred (800) Kenya shillings – and the phones in 2019 and 2030 may make the top phones that currently being sold today look like stone tools that cavemen employed.

He also had a funny note that iPads and other tablets are not true mobile devices, because they require one to be stationary to use them, and usually while the owner is comfortably seated, not as they walk around town. But then, a few Kenyans have been spotted talking into these gigantic devices, and also walking around downtown Nairobi while typing into their tablets, something which is not advisable, even with the tiniest, or most basic, mulika mwizi phone.

Twitter : @bankelele