There is no stopping the onward march of the mobile phone. There are already more than 40 separate functions built into mobiles - though not all at the same time - ranging from calendars and calculators to MP3 players and cameras. Many of them, like the diary, are not used because they are not user-friendly. The best example is the ongoing popularity of the wristwatch, even though it is redundant since every mobile knows the time. But gradually the phone is beating down consumer resistance.
This year camera phones have come into their own and as they get even better they will probably capture a huge slice of the digital camera market, and maybe dominate it. MP3 players, enabling the downloading of music or audio books, are also gaining in popularity. Some pundits predict they will never have the coolness or capacity of Apple's pioneering iPod, or one of the numerous rivals trying to knock it off its perch. But memory capacity in mobiles is rapidly expanding and component parts are still shrinking in size. It may only be a question of time before the phone swallows the iPod (or vice versa).
Soon manufacturers will start to persuade us to watch television on mobiles. It is already happening in Japan, Korea and even Norway, where the public broadcaster NRK has a 24 hour a day service. Last year BBC Worldwide did a deal with Vodafone allowing users to download excerpts from Fawlty Towers. Miniature television sets have been around for decades, but have never caught on, partly because people don't like carrying multiple devices around. But what if the TV is bundled into the phone? Engineers are working on the main obstacles. Screen technology is improving and so are ways of extending battery life as TV screens are extremely power hungry. The cost of watching mobile TV is also very expensive. If mobile television makes it to the big time it will not necessarily be conventional television recycled. New companies dedicated to mobile reception may emerge. Stand by for a thorny debate about whether mobile TV watchers will need a licence.
