Forget typing, think your e-mail

Like most 10 year olds, the iPhone is virtually unrecognisable from its first arrival on the scene.

It isn't just the aesthetic of the phones that has changed. Their sheer ubiquity - Apple sold 212million in last year's 2016 fiscal year alone - means our world is recorded and mapped on an unprecedented scale, largely from the power of those slender little rectangles.

So, if that's how much progress has been made in a decade, what might our phones be up to in another 10 years?

Ben Hammersley, a keynote speaker on the topic of futurism and former contributing editor of Wired UK, said: "I think we'll be using a lot more voice interfaces."

Similar technologies already exist of course, such as Apple's Siri or the Alexa function of Amazon Echo. But that's precisely Hammersley's point: most of the potential of today's technology remains untapped.

"Most people have no idea of the power of the device they have in their pocket."

The potential of the smartphone will really only be tapped as part of various specialist capacities. He gives the rising popularity of augmented reality displays like the Hololens, a computer that lets you interact with holograms in a specific environment, as an example.

"I've seen people using augmented reality in industrial settings, health and safety settings and medical settings. Will you find people walking around town wearing a Hololens? Probably not. Might you want to use one if you're a surgeon or an engineer or a pilot? Yes, absolutely."

As our connection between our smartphones and their origins as telephones becomes ever more tenuous, there are certain features we can expect to see rise in 10 years.

But aren't these predictions fairly conservative? Can't we expect to see rapid exponential developments of even the highly advanced technologies we have today?

Alec Birri is a science fiction author whose new book, Condition, will be out next month. His fiction is based on the social effect of rapid technological developments he sees happening within the next 10 years.

"We won't touchscreens anymore. It's almost certain we'll type e-mails by thought alone."

Whatever form our phones take 10 years from now, one thing is certain: we'll still be complaining about battery life. - The Daily Telegraph

• This article was originally published in The Times.