3D is undoubtedly the next big thing. Various business and industrial segments are already using 3D for better ROI. More changes are sure to make their way through, but to which direction they will be heading is a relevant question.

The hand-held device market has begun to adopt the latest 3D trends. Ten or fifteen years from now, we are sure to see some real improvements in the 3D domain. But since inquisitive creatures, many of us have already started to wonder what type of changes will creep into the 3D of the future.

In this article, we’ll make a meal for our readers who are curious to know the future of 3D technology for Smartphones, Tablets, and similar devices. For that, we first need to touch base the current developments in the 3D arena.

Current Developments

Microsoft has long been rumored to introduce a Windows run 3D phone. Reports were to and fro indicating the phone is underway. But in the third quarter of 2014, we got to hear Microsoft has decided to kill the flagship phone. The reasons for giving such a futuristic idea a thought and then later abandoning it need explanation.

The project was called McLaren. The embedded 3D technology was for rendering better gesture control through Kinect-based gesture recognition. Microsoft may have gotten an edge by launching the phone, but it didn’t launch it because developers were not interested to work on apps and services that center around the 3D gesture control system.

A very recent development, heralded by Apple is glass-free 3D display. Apple considers the current display style of 3D objects unintuitive, in the sense that users themselves need to click or drag a 3D object in order to view it from multiple angles. The glass-free 3D display will change its perspectives based on where a user is positioned. The position of users will be identified through infrared or electromagnetic sensors.

The Future

The 3D technologies to put in appearance in the future will render:

Real-time modeling – Google’s Project Tango attempts to bring state-of-the-art 3D tracking coupled with computer vision to the hand-held domain. The ingredients of such an ultra-modern technology are a camera that tracks motion, a depth sensor and a 120° wide-angle camera.

The sensor has excellent capacity; it could render a quarter million 3D measurements a second. If and when Project Tango will become a reality, real-time 3D modeling and augmented reality through Smart devices will get a new definition.

Health monitoring – Apple is the flag-bearer of this trend. The Cupertino giant introduced a centralized hub to accommodate its health apps when it launched iOS 8. The hub was called HealthKit. Apple has reportedly put the 3D pressure monitor in the pipeline as the followup. These technologies will be found on the next flagship iPhone and iWatch. They’ll better monitor pulse rate, blood pressure, etc.

Holographic 3D smartphones – Albeit nothing more of a concept right now, holographic 3D smartphones could soon make their presence felt. The camera of such a Smartphone will first track a user’s eye movements to adjust the hologram generator. Apart from the rear camera, such phones will reportedly have four other cameras around their edges; the camera on the back will be used to collect holographic data.

Narrow viewing angle is a concern for Smartphone users, who watch videos on their devices. The holographic 3D phones will make it possible for users to view objects on their screens from multiple angles. Besides, playing games and using apps will be super fun. Brands endorsement could change altogether as rendering life-like product displays will be possible. The GPS interface will also undergo incisive changes.

Some Challenges

It’s a bit difficult to speculate the challenges because the speculations might fly autopilot in the absence of facts and the facts are not possible for us to gather at this moment.

Having said that, the biggest roadblock to the growth of futuristic 3D technology could be the saturation in the app development segment. As we’ve described above, Microsoft has already faced this challenge. Another challenge could be the top hardware manufacturers not showing a leg. They are often not willing to embrace changes, especially if they are radical changes.

Apple, for example, introduced NFC on its flagship iPhone when it realized not introducing it will amount to it lagging behind in the race. Now since users have a predilection for branded products, if the brands stall the upcoming improvements in 3D segment, then they might decide to wait instead of opting for lesser known companies.

Nevertheless, advancements in the 3D Smartphone segment, especially hologram generation could be so radical that the top manufacturers might feel it’s high time for them to venture into the 3D territory, so they could keep their credibility intact. Overwhelmed by this belief, they might decide to keep pace with the advancements.

Read more: Will Tablets Overtake PCs in 2015?