updated 8:22 AM EST, Tue January 1, 2013
Editor's note: Nilay Patel is the managing editor of The Verge, an online website that covers technology, science, art and culture. Follow him on Twitter: @reckless
(CNN) -- 2013 will be a year of harsh change for the
tech industry. We've just experienced five years of rapid, messy and
disruptive innovation, and smartphones and tablets aren't the future any
longer -- they're the present.
Powerful mobile devices
connected to broadband-speed cell networks are now an everyday reality,
and it's going to take more than a bigger screen or faster processor to
make an impact this year. Think of 2013 as the year of refinement and
reckoning.
Here are five big developments to keep an eye on:
1. The future of Microsoft
Microsoft has been very
candid about "missing a generation" of mobile innovation after Apple
introduced the iPhone, and 2012 was all about the results of a furious
catch-up effort: the company launched the completely rethought Windows 8
for PCs, Windows RT for tablets and Windows Phone 8 for smartphones.
CEO Steve Ballmer also repositioned Microsoft as a "devices and
services" company, and he introduced the Surface and Surface Pro, two
tablets designed by Microsoft itself to compete with traditional PC
companies such as Dell and Sony.
Nilay Patel
That's a lot of bold
bets, and they all have to pay off in 2013. The PC era is over, and
Microsoft has to show consumers it has something to offer in a world
dominated by tablets and smartphones. Windows 8 and Surface sales appear
to have been slow so far, so we'll see how the company does. There is
one all-but-guaranteed bright spot, though: a new Xbox is due to be
announced this year.
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2. Can Apple get its software mojo back?
Apple found success in
2012 by introducing an iPhone with a bigger screen and an iPad with a
smaller screen, but it'll have to focus on software in 2013 to stay
ahead of the competition.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has
now launched two iPhones since taking over for Steve Jobs, and both of
them have come with buggy, incomplete flagship software features -- the
iPhone 4S launched with the charming-but-not-so-useful Siri voice
assistant, and the iPhone 5 launched with a homegrown Maps app so buggy
that Cook was forced to apologize to customers.
In the meantime,
archrival Google has begun shipping some of the best iPhone apps around
-- I've replaced most of Apple's apps on my iPhone homescreen with
Google-built replacements such as Gmail, Google Maps, Chrome and
YouTube. Most of my peers in the industry have done the same. That's not
a good sign.
Cook just fired Scott
Forstall, the controversial head of iOS development who presided over
Siri and Maps. Designer Jony Ive is now in charge of both hardware and
software, so we'll see if the company can regain its reputation for
state-of-the-art software design with the next iPhone and iPad.
3. Will Amazon go head to head with Apple and Google?
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos
was very blunt when he introduced the new Kindle Fire HD in September --
he called it the "best tablet on the market." That was an obvious shot
at Apple and the iPad, but Amazon's real competitor may well be Google,
especially as the market for books, music and movies moves entirely
online.
There's no way Amazon
wants people searching Google to find content and products from multiple
sources. Amazon wants to build an ecosystem so robust you never want to
leave. Think of what Apple did for music with the iPod and iTunes and
then imagine Amazon doing that for everything.
But the Kindle Fire
products aren't good enough to compete with the iPad yet, and Amazon
doesn't have all the services it needs to compete with Google either. It
needs to offer at least e-mail and search, and a social experience
wouldn't hurt either. That's not a small undertaking, but Amazon is one
of the few companies with the scale, infrastructure and resources to
make it happen. The rumors are getting louder. We'll see whether Amazon
makes a big move in 2013.
4. Can Facebook grow up?
2013 will be Facebook's
first year as a public company, and it has to prove that it can be a
stable, reliable investment. That's no easy task: Facebook figured out
how to make money selling ads on its website just as most of its users
switched to smartphone and tablet apps.
Selling ads on mobile
isn't nearly as easy, and Facebook has to figure out how to display
relevant ads to smartphone users without crossing the privacy line -- a
line about which users are increasingly worried. But CEO Mark Zuckerberg
has to answer to his investors now, and the pressure to cross that line
will increase every day that Facebook isn't making money in mobile.
5. Can Google take Android back from Samsung and the wireless carriers?
Here's the brutal truth
of the smartphone market: the only companies that make any money are
Apple and Samsung. Every other company, from HTC to Sony to Google's own
Motorola, is struggling. And that's a huge problem for Google.
Apple obviously writes
its own software for the iPhone, but Samsung's phones all run a
customized version of Google's open-source Android, and Samsung is so
dominant that it could very well split off and start building its own
version of Android, just as Amazon did with the Kindle Fire. That would
be a huge blow to Google. If the rest of the market can't make money
using Android soon, it'll provide a big opening for Microsoft.
Google also has to find a
way to limit the influence of wireless carriers on Android. Companies
such as AT&T and Verizon are all too happy to load up Android
devices with unnecessary crapware and bloatware that ruin the user
experience while delaying important software updates.
The animosity between
Google and the carriers has gotten so deep that Google's new Nexus 4
flagship device doesn't have an LTE radio; the carriers simply wouldn't
cooperate.
That's in stark contrast
to the iPhone experience, which is pristine and controlled by Apple
from the start. It's a control that irritates power users but offers a
sense of support and security to the rest of Apple's millions of
customers. There's a happy balance between the two extremes, and Google
needs to find it before Android begins to slip away entirely.
These are just five of
the many interesting things to look out for in 2013, from the future of
TV to the rise of wearable computing. After several years of rapid
change, we've all got computers in our pockets. The next few years will
be about what we do with them to make our lives better.
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http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/01/opinion/patel-2013-tech-trends/index.html?hpt=te_r1
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