How about a touchless iPhone?

There may not be much left to do with smart phones. The iPhone was a dramatic step forward ten years ago, but in the last few years meaningful innovation has run dry. But there's new tech on the way -- in a couple of years.

Apple won't say but the Consumer Technology Association's Rick Kowalski says they're working on touchless controls for a future phone.

"You could just make broad gestures that would trigger the next song to play or open an app or something."

But Android manufacturers are working on it too and they might beat Apple to the punch.

                     

"It's not necessarily waving above the phone but just above the surface of the phone so you don't necessarily touch it; that seems to be the direction it's heading."

Bloomberg's Alex Webb says it's difficult to make an impression with consumers these days.

"The issue is, at the moment, that every smart phone, broadly speaking, looks the same. If I put six smart phones in front of my almost 70-year-old mother she might have a little bit of difficulty differentiating between them."

Webb says Apple may also innovate by improving existing tech.

"Face ID and the 3D depth perception they have in the new iPhones; those sort of technologies are only scratching the surface right now in terms of implementation -- there'll be a lot more things Apple can do a lot further down the line."

Webb says another innovation might be a curved iPhone screen, but this is also probably a couple of years away.


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