Suddenly, the thrilling future of consumer electronics is becoming clear. We’re entering a world in which any content — movies, TV, music, books, games and more — will be available on any device at any time. This is a huge transformation, and it’s coming very soon. It used to be that different devices were used […]
Suddenly, the thrilling future of consumer electronics is becoming clear. We’re entering a world in which any content — movies, TV, music, books, games and more — will be available on any device at any time.
This is a huge transformation, and it’s coming very soon.
It used to be that different devices were used for entirely different things. Go back ten years. We used TVs for — wait for it! — watching TV. Desktop computers were used mostly for “real work,” office applications, web surfing, gaming and other uses. Laptops were either desktop replacements for some, or traveling devices for others. Phones were used for making calls, texting and other mobile-specific uses.
By this time next year, nearly all these devices will do nearly all these functions.
We’ll use the TV for texting and video phone calls. We’ll watch “cable” TV on tablets. We’ll do work on office suites with phones. We’ll check our shopping lists on the TV. We’ll DVR-record shows with our phones. Our tablets will do everything.
This anything, anywhere, anytime future is closer than you think.
Apple introduced a feature called Airplay Mirroring in 2010, and announced it as a feature in iOS 5at last year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
The feature enables any device running iTunes, iOS 4.2 or later or OS X Mountain Lion to stream whatever’s on the screen to any device connected via AirPort Express, Apple TVor any number of third-party devices that have licensed the technology.
Let’s say you want to show someone a video on YouTube. Just punch it up on your iPhone and tap the AirPlay Mirroring button, it shows up in HD on your TV. And it looks surprisingly good. (This is assuming you’ve already set it up, which is easy.)
The same goes for games, apps, calendars, photos and more.
AirPlay Mirroring isn’t mainstream, mainly because of the limited number of people with AirPort Express or Apple TV. But for the minority who use it, the feature is fantastic now, and will probably get much better in the future.
Over time, the “illusion” of “mirroring” one screen on another will be maintained, while actual content will be intelligently downloaded from iCloudor played from the device itself. For example, if you’re playing a movie as a file optimized for iPhone on the phone, AirPlay will grab the full TV HD version from iCloud for the TV or from the TV’s hard drive.
People will increasingly use Apple AirPlay Mirroring and competing products and services just like it.
The TV becomes just a big computer screen, and you’ll be able to use any connected device in the house to play anything on it.
I believe Apple will soon announce — possibly as soon as Monday at this year’s WWDC— something I call “Reverse Mirroring” — a feature that beams whatever’s on your TV to your iOS devices or to your OS X computer.
That means you should be able to watch both live and DVR-recorded content on your Mac, iPador iPhone.
Over time, it will also mean that TV-specific apps for “smart TVs” will be easily available on mobile devices and desktop PCs in the house.
The convergence of cloud computing, higher mobility, digital content, faster wireless speeds, higher resolution screens, apps, and other trends have conspired to enable a radical new sharing of tasks on all the screens in your life.
The next phase is getting them to work together in intelligent ways. That means a single app, or a TV show that works with apps, will work together to create a multi-screen experience.
Not just TV on phones, or phone apps on TVs, but TVs and phones working together to create something never before possible.
So iPhones and iPads will function as remote control units, game controllers, and third screens.
Again, this is all speculation on my part. But no matter when Apple announces such a feature, Microsofthas already beat them to it — at least to an announcement.
Microsoft announced this week a new feature called SmartGlass. It will show up in the form of an app (iOS, Android, Windows Phone or Windows 8) that can be used to control an Xbox. It can function like a TV remote, a game controller, a “second screen” for games or whatever third-party developers conjure up.
Google will almost certainly follow suit with new features that connect screens in both Google TV and Android for phones and tablets.
Apple, Microsoft, Google and others are in a life-or-death struggle for dominance of your living room and your “everything.” And they’ll do it by thrilling you with screen convergence.
Here are the kinds of activities this trend enables:
* Read a book to your kids on the TV — you read from an iPad, but the child sees a big interactive experience on the TV.
* Use the microphone on your phone for a karaoke app or a game.
* Use your phone as a Wii-style controller, leveraging the built-in gyroscope and other sensors.
* Play games that show a different screen to each player. For example, a poker game might show the poker table on the TV with cards face down, but each player sees their own cards on their own mobile devices. You can throw cards face up on the TV by flicking them on the phone.
* Show a presentation on a TV and use the phone as clicker.
* Use any mobile device as the interactive remote control for the TV.
Note that the cable and satellite dish companies don’t like any of this. It brings easy competition to scheduled broadcasts from anything and everything online or served up via apps. And it enables families to have one subscription, “consumed” on lots of screens.
But most of all, it takes more power and control over the distribution of TV and movies away from Hollywood and gives it to Silicon Valley.
I appeared as a guest on the netcast MacBreak Weekly this week, and host Leo Laporte pointed out his long-predicted expectation for the future of media. To paraphrase, he sees a world of anything, anywhere, anytime content.
No more worrying about platform, broadcast schedules, storage location or any of that. Whatever you want, wherever and whenever you want it is coming soon to a screen — to all screens — near you.
Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020
Anticipating The Coming Wave Of AI Enhanced PCs
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 05, 2020
The Critical Nature Of IBM’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) Effort
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
August 14, 2020
Mike Elgan is an American journalist, blogger, columnist, and podcaster. He is a columnist for publications including Computerworld, Cult of Android, Cult of Mac, Forbes, Datamation, eWeek, and Baseline.
Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.
Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.
