Without looking up any leaks or rumors, I\u2019d bet that you could probably sketch most of the phones rumored to be launching at Mobile World Congress next week<\/a>. Over the years, smartphones have settled on a relatively consistent design formula of big rectangular touchscreens, small selfie camera cutouts, app-based interfaces, and large camera bumps with an array of different lenses. But more than a decade and a half into the smartphone era, I\u2019m getting more and more curious about what\u2019s going to come next and why existing attempts to reinvent smartphones like foldables have struggled to go mainstream.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n To my mind, much of the answer comes back to apps. We barely think about them because it\u2019s so easy to take for granted that all your third-party software will work on your next phone, but you\u2019d never consider buying a device that can\u2019t run your banking app or ridehailing service of choice. Just look at Huawei<\/a>, which went from challenging Apple<\/a> to be the world\u2019s second-biggest smartphone manufacturer to getting its Android license revoked and dropping out of the top five altogether<\/a>. First-party apps are the foundation of a smartphone, but it\u2019s the third-party software that makes it feel like your personal tool.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Apps matter! But apps also bear a lot of the blame for why phones look the same now and why any attempt to move on from the traditional slab form factor and interface faces an uphill battle.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s obviously possible to change a smartphone\u2019s form factor without breaking third-party apps. But literally millions of apps are optimized to work with screens of roughly the same size and aspect ratios. And that makes the argument for, say, an expensive new foldable a lot weaker when many of your most-used apps don\u2019t make the most of its bigger screen and instead awkwardly stretch to fill the extra space or even display with black bars down either side. Clever software workarounds and multitasking support help, but it makes it less exciting to invest in a big change.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So what can a manufacturer do if it wants to shake things up? The more traditional approach is one of diplomacy, of coaxing third-party developers into supporting your new initiative. (Just look at Nothing releasing an SDK for its phones\u2019 flashing Glyph interface<\/a>.) But more recently, we\u2019re seeing next-generation devices that are trying to cut apps out of the equation entirely. At CES in January, we saw Rabbit introduce the R1<\/a>, a new $199 gadget that promises to use AI to streamline the process of accessing existing apps. And at MWC, AI startup Brain.ai says<\/a> it plans to show off a so-called \u201capp-less phone\u201d concept in partnership with Deutsche Telekom<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The lofty promise for Brain.ai\u2019s concept device is that it\u2019ll have \u201can app-free interface that predicts and generates the next interface contextually, flowing with your thoughts.\u201d It sounds like the concept device will be based on Deutsche Telekom\u2019s existing T Phone but with an interface based on Brain.ai\u2019s Natural iOS app<\/a>. The software looks like a more visual version of Google Assistant or Siri, responding to spoken or written prompts with an interface of its own rather than routing you to an app.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I think it\u2019s far too early to say whether these unproven AI-powered devices have any hope of unseating the traditional smartphone as our primary personal and portable computing devices. And it\u2019s clear that there\u2019ll be no shortage of more traditional launches at this year\u2019s MWC:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Alongside these commercial launches, it seems likely we\u2019ll also see some more experimental concept devices shown off. There have been several leaks pointing toward a transparent laptop from Lenovo<\/a>, and I suspect we\u2019ll see its subsidiary Motorola trot out the bendable smartphone concept<\/a> it showed off last October. That would line up with the company\u2019s approach at last year\u2019s MWC, when it showed off rollable laptop and smartphone concepts<\/a>. It goes without saying that third-party app support is a much less pressing issue with concept devices like these that are unlikely to be commercially released anytime soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n