Published on the 17/12/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
Whatever the personal technology lurking under the tree next week – it’s about to get outdated quicksmart…
Gartner has released its personal technology predictions and forecasts that by 2019 a third of us will use gestures or speech to issue commands to control technology and 20 percent of devices will be able to monitor emotions (presumably more subtle emotions than the ones on display when we fling technology across the room out of sheer frustration).
Santa’s going to have to get a whole lot smarter to keep up.
But he is going to keep on delivering technology because Gartner says that by 2018 a consumer in a mature market will use and own more than three personal devices. These will be a mix of what Gartner describes as main and niche devices.
Main devices include smartphones, tablets and laptops while niche devices include wearables, smart glasses and other connected devices.
The rise of wearable technology is such that the analyst forecasts that while 740 million wearables will be in use in 2016, that will rise to 1.1 billion units by 2019.
In terms of brand, analysis from Perfecto Mobile, which recently launched in Australia, shows Android devices are still in the lead with an overall share of 50 percent compared to Apple with 42 percent, Windows with 5 percent and a smattering of other brands making up the last 3 per cent.
For organisations writing applications for those platforms, Chrome is the preferred browser for 43 percent of devices, while other significant market share is held by Internet Explorer on 27 percent, Mozilla Firefox 11 percent and Safari 8 pe cent.
And while Santa may have his work cut out sorting through the different options, Australian consumers are letting their fingers do more of the Christmas shopping than ever. Commonwealth Bank, which has been one of the front runners with digital wallet innovations in Australia, said that when it surveyed its customers in the lead up to the festive season 18 percent of them said that they planned to do all of their Christmas shopping on a smartphone this year while 24 percent would like to use their smartphone instead of cards or cash to pay for Christmas gifts.
The recent decision by American Express and Apple to team up to offer ApplePay in Australia will also likely spur the rise of mobile payments – at least among people with an Amex card.
But the rise of Android Pay could be even faster in Australia (especially given the Android platform’s local dominance). ANZ, Westpac, Bank of Melbourne, Bank of South Australia, Bendigo Bank, Cuscal, ING DIRECT, Macquarie Bank, and St. George have all signed onto the platform, which should be up and running for Visa and MasterCard users by mid-2016, with eftpos card users likely to follow.
