Despite a Slowdown, Smartphone Advances Are Still Ahead

Incremental improvements can add up over a span of years, providing the computing horsepower to enable big advances in software.

Although it could take years of work before the technology reached mass market prices, researchers and some intrepid technology companies said they believe wearable computers could be crucial to unlocking a new category of applications called “augmented reality.”

Incremental improvements can add up over a span of years, providing the computing horsepower to enable big advances in software.

Changes in materials could also allow for more radical designs for smartphones and peripherals that connect to them.

One of Apple’s most intriguing recent efforts to redefine the iPhone is Siri, the voice-activated virtual assistant that it introduced in October with the iPhone 4S.

They are improvements, to be sure, but they lack the breathtaking impact the first iPhone had, with its pioneering fusion of software and touch screens.

The feature has the potential to change how consumers retrieve information on their iPhones, giving them the ability to find information on the Web with natural voice commands and to perform other tasks.

Google and some of its mobile phone partners have also moved toward replacing the credit card with the smartphone using a technology called near-field communications that lets users make payments wirelessly at cash registers.

As Apple continues to improve Siri, Google, the maker of the Android phone operating system, improves on its voice search products.

One of Apple’s most intriguing recent efforts to redefine the iPhone is Siri, the voice-activated virtual assistant that it introduced in October with the iPhone 4S.

They are improvements, to be sure, but they lack the breathtaking impact the first iPhone had, with its pioneering fusion of software and touch screens.

Wearable computers are a source of fascination among many Silicon Valley companies, especially at Google.

“Since then, it has been kind of incremental,” said Chetan Sharma, an independent mobile analyst.

People could eventually play augmented reality games that could involve laying virtual ambushes around corners in the real world.

Corning, a company that makes the glass used in iPhone and other smartphone screens, has developed a flexible product called Willow Glass.

The feature has the potential to change how consumers retrieve information on their iPhones, giving them the ability to find information on the Web with natural voice commands and to perform other tasks.

Apple is taking a more cautious approach to new mobile payment systems, offering a feature in its new iPhone software called Passbook for storing electronic versions of store payment, gift and loyalty cards.

“You can achieve more organic designs.”

Then there are seemingly mundane technical breakthroughs that could take away some of the more vexing aspects of smartphones, like the need to worry constantly about keeping them charged.

In 2010, Apple filed a patent application for a small fuel-cell power supply that could potentially give the iPhone and iPad enough juice to last for weeks without the need to plug them in.

Faster chips, bigger screens and speedier wireless Internet connections are among the refinements smartphone users can count on year after year in new models, most of them in familiar rectangular packages.

The iPhone 5 that Apple introduced last week with only incremental changes seemed to signal that the industry has entered an era of technological bunny hops.

“A lot of people are thinking about augmented reality as a possible game changer in mobile computing,” said Tobias Hollerer, a computer science professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who is researching the field.