Mobility apps are being integrated into nearly every consumer field, from health to automotive to games to music to retail and lifestyle electronics.
The mobility tipping point is upon us because current devices now house arrays of MEMS sensors. This opens up possibilities for "empathetic" electronics, which adapt their functions to users and their local environment. According to Neidhardt, the first wave of mobility was borne by the telecommunications giants, from AT&T (U.S.) to NTT (Japan), which built walled gardens around their wireless devices and associated services. The second wave rose as a result of the iPhone, which initiated the app-economy that is also enjoyed today by Google's Android, Amazon's Kindle and Microsoft's Windows Phone along with tablets from the Apple iPad to Samsung's Galaxy Tab. The third wave washing over us now is integrating mobility into every other nook and cranny of electronics by virtue of the inclusion of wireless connectivity and MEMS sensors. Connected homes, connected automobiles ,and connected tools of every type are leveraging ubiquitous sensors and processors to add smarts to everything we do. Thus the smartphone is becoming the remote control of our lives by virtue of apps that use its touchscreen as their human interface.
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