Back in November, LG Canada asked me if I wanted to be a part of an international blogger forum happening in Seoul, South Korea. With the launch of their first smartphone (The LG Eve) recently behind them, they wanted to engage with bloggers about the future of mobile, with the LG Eve as their stepping stone. So over the last month and a half, I’ve been using and playing with the LG Eve to see what I liked and didn’t like, taking into consideration as to what the next steps might be in terms of future mobile. This led me to list of of features that I think will grow and develop over the next few years. The three things that come to mind for me are handsfree/speech recognition, docking your phone and universal bluetooth/networking functionality.

Handsfree/Speech Recognition

With more and more governments, banning the use of mobile devices while driving. Being able to use your device handsfree is becoming increasingly important. There are already devices on the market that allow for very basic forms of speech recognition. I can only assume that these technologies will likely improve over the next few years, allowing consumers to do more than just dialling pre-programmed numbers. Ideally, you’ll be able to tell your phone to update your twitter or facebook feed. Perhaps you’ll be able to even write entire emails simply by dictating into your phone. Imagine describing an event you are witnessing and posting it into your blog, via your smartphone, without actually typing anything into the device. That would be amazing. Perhaps this is still a few years down the line, but all ideas have to start somewhere.

Docking your phone

Currently, I’m an iPhone user and I love it because it can do all the basic computing things that I can do on my home computer. I’m able to read, and send email with ease, browse websites, listen to music and access all my social networks. Wouldn’t it be great if you could simply dock your phone, just like your able to dock a notebook computer to larger monitors and full keyboards? Having one device instead of two, would definitely simplify things. And everything now is bluetooth enabled, so set up should be a breeze. Which leads me to my last idea.

Universal Bluetooth/Networking

Just like the Lord of the Rings, with one ring to rule them all, imagine one device to control them all. So many devices are bluetooth enabled; keyboards, mice, controllers for video games, computers, headsets. Now imagine if all your household devices had bluetooth, or even simple network capabilities. You walk into a room and you can turn on your entertainment system. Your laundry finishes it’s cycle and you receive a txt or an email from your washing machine, telling you it’s done. Imagine not having to deal with half a dozen remote controls, or programming your PVR from your phone. Slowly these systems are becoming a reality, and with standards in bluetooth and wireless networking, it only a matter of time before every electronic device in your home will have the ability to connect to the home network.

Perhaps my ideas are a tad futuristic, but is it really that far off into the future? When I was growing up, we were still using film to take pictures with our cameras, and now we live in a world where my phone, can take a picture, shoot video and access the internet all in my pocket. I’m sure it won’t take long for that same device to take charge of many other functions in our day to day life.

So today, I’m hopping on a plane and travelling half way around the world to meet up with a bunch of other bloggers from 8 different countries. Sure we’ll get to tour around the beautiful city of Seoul, but we are also gonna get the opportunity to meet with LG engineers to see what’s coming down the pipe and perhaps plant ideas of flying cars and and universal devices that were once known as phones. How does your future look?

So for the last month, as a part of a blogger outreach program, I’ve been playing with the first Smartphone put out by the South Korean company LG, appropriately called the LG Eve (aka LG GW620). The phone features include a resistive touch screen, a tactile slider qwerty keyboard and a 5 megapixel camera (and LED flash) which shoots both photos and videos. Touted as a Social Media smartphone, the LG Eve runs on the Google Android OS, which allows for the download and use of any Android based applications.

Upon initial inspection, the LG Eve looks like a slightly smaller, slightly thicker iPhone wanna be, featuring a 3 inch screen (dimensions 106 x 55 x 12 mm). But you soon discover the discover a slider tactile qwerty keyboard and the impressive 5 megapixel camera. The phone was initially loaded with a limited number of basic applications and upon my first use of the phone, I wasn’t all that impressed. Being a full time iPhone user, Apple has done a very good job of training us to use our phones in certain ways, and using the LG Eve requires a bit of unlearning to get a full sense of the three available buttons available on the LG Eve. Underneath the touchscreen, there is a home button to the left, a round menu button in the middle and a back to the right. Once you figure out how each button works, the ease of use on the LG Eve increases massively.

Sample Video from the LG Eve

Out of the box, I wasn’t all that impressed with the applications built into the LG Eve. Being an Android phone, it came preloaded with all the various google applications, a very functional GPS application called Telenav (subscription extra), and a few other basic applications for email, web browsing etc. Also included was a Social Networking application called linkbook, which is supposed to be your one stop shop for all your social networking needs (I’ll get into this shortly). It wasn’t until I found the Marketplace application and started downloading various applications when I started to truly enjoy playing with the LG Eve. In the marketplace I was able to find apps for all my social networking needs. Twitter, facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, they had them all covered. I was also able to find Android versions of my favorite iPhone apps like Bump and Shazam. I think it was a very smart move on LG’s part to hop on the Android bandwagon, as opposed to building their own operating system for the phone. There is a whole community behind the Android movement and lots of apps being developed for it.

Linkbook

One of the biggest things they are marketing about this phone is it’s ability to connect you to your social network’s. The built in application made for that purpose, on the LG Eve is called Linkbook. The application allows you to connect to various social network from one central place. In theory, it sounds like an amazing idea, but in execution, LG does a poor job. When shown the application for the first time, I was deeply disappointed with it lack of features. The app, only provides support for Facebook, Twitter and Beebo (who uses that?). The software only allows you to access one network at a time. And there is a very limited number of things you can do from the application. Basically from a Social Network Manager application I would expect to see a number of features, which would include, but are not limited to; a large selection of networks to plug into (FourSquare, Flickr, LinkedIn, Friendfeed, MySpace etc), the ability to update my status once and have it posted to all (or selected) networks, and the ability to access more information like facebook events, or other information you might find useful while you are mobile. Of course, the redeeming feature of the phone, which I mentioned above, is it’s Android platform, which provided me with many application options for my various Social networking needs.

The Camera

When handed a phone to try, my first thing to check out is it’s camera capabilities. The photo of Wall-E above is the first I took with the camera and instantly I was impressed by it’s ability to take decent macro shots. But the real strength in the camera is built into the camera application itself. When you dive into the camera’s menu screens you soon discover, exposure compensation, flash and macro controls, shooting modes, white balancing and a whole slew of other settings you can control. Also in playing back the images on the gallery application, there are a number of edit features that you can do in-camera. Many people have asked me if I would trade my iPhone for the LG Eve. And for the camera alone, I might.

Photo Gallery of images captured with the LG Eve

Overall the LG Eve is a excellent initial effort by LG into the smartphone market. They’ve made a lot of good choices with this phone. The keyboard and touchscreen combo is a great feature especially for those who are fans of tactile keyboards, and I know there are a lot of you out there. The built in camera is a joy to play with. and the Android platform provides a ton of applications, for productivity, to games to social networking. The LG Eve is available in Canada on the Rogers network.

The folks over at Gizmodo dare to ask the question, Is HD Video the next must-have point ‘n’ shoot feature? And my answer is a resounding YES, which matches the opinions of 51.8% of the respondants thus far.

I think it’s quite timely, that they’ve asked this question, especially around here if you consider how much video I have posted in the last week. And really with sites as strong as You Tube, and our favourite Vimeo, I don’t see online video going away anytime soon.

The path is fairly simple. People are already creating their own video content to be posted online and it’s being watched by millions around the world. Look at the increase in the number of video podcast being created. With devices such at Apple TV and widescreen televisions and computer monitors. It’s hard not to see the appeal of HD video. Because if you are given the space, then why not utilize it?

I think a couple of things need to happen to get us to this point.

Affordablity
HD recording devices need to become more affordable for the average consumer. And including it in a point and shoot camera is an easy way to make that a reality. Last year, Canon introduced the Powershot TX1 which records at 720p while Kodak announced the V1253 and V1233. This year, announcements were made by Panasonic (TZ5 and FX35) and Samsung (NV24HD). Even companies like Aiptek released low end camcorders (A-HD 720p and the GO-HD) which are HD ready. All these products fall under the $600 mark. In the near future, devices that record 640×480 will hopefully be a thing of the past and HD compatible devices will be the norm and any point and shoot, but we aren’t quite there yet.

Ease of Use
Another important feature for the average person will be ease of use. Basically, when I shoot a video, I want to be able to dump it on my computer and upload to my favorite video sharing site instantly. Luckily, most devices, like point and shoot cameras are already making it that easy. Your average camcorder, not so easy. With more people wanting to create video, this ease of use factor will become more and more important especially if they want this market to grow.

Watching the Market grow
I’ve seen it happen before and I’m sure it will happen again. Over the years, I’ve watched as the digital camera market exploded. First everyone had a point and shoot camera. They got totally hooked on their new creative outlet and progressively moved to more sophisticated equipment. I see the same thing happening to video. Once people get a taste for creating decent videos in HD with an affordable piece of equipment, they will eventually outgrow and upgrade their equipment.

If you asked me 5 years ago, if I thought digital SLR would catch on among regular consumers, my answer probably would have been a resounding NO. The equipment was too expensive and most consumers were content with their point and shoot cameras.

If you ask me now if I think HD camcorders will be will catch on in the next 5 years, my answer is YES. The introduction to include HD video on point and shoot cameras is the first step to creating a bigger HD market in the future. You may not want one now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up owning one in the next 5 years. Let me tell you, I can’t wait to have my own.