All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Gizmodo may earn an affiliate commission.

Many of the biggest players in tech imagine they’re capable of making devices that will become as popular and as ubiquitous as the smartphone. Those companies that actually make our phones are finally starting to clap back and say phones aren’t going away, and it’s about time.

You may not have originally clocked one of Apple CEO John Ternus’s opening statements during the company’s “Surprise and Shine” showcase, where the company announced the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro. He called the iPhone “the intelligent personal hub” for all those other AI-connected devices that surround us. Then, at Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm’s CEO, Cristiano Amon, offered a similar stance. The company that makes many of the chips for Android phones and many other devices besides said they think the phone will remain the lychpin for every other gadget you own.

Gizmodo sat down with Christopher Patrick, Qualcomm’s head of handsets, and he doubled down on that point. In his mind, every one of the newfangled wearables, earbuds, and AR glasses that pack in AI to the gills are simply accessories that treat the phone as “central.” And even if use cases change or we get more devices than just foldables, the phone form factor really won’t change. Everything else you hear is just “an illusion,” he said.

The frankness is refreshing, though Patrick’s stance is not the only opinion within Qualcomm.

Source link