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I was reading Wired’s article, The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine, specifically regarding the popular Flip video recorder, and I couldn’t help but think, “we’re going to eat those guys for lunch”.

When I say “we”, I mean system-on-chip vendors like Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Freescale, Samsung, etc. Likewise when I say “those guys” I refer to any device maker whose product overlaps with the smartphone roadmap.

What does the smartphone roadmap look like? Increased multimedia applications, more and more wireless standards supported and tons of new and exciting sensors that no one has ever considered before.

Some day you might plug your phone into your TV to play HD content. Or you might use your phone to open your garage door remotely, instead of using that silly little device that you leave inside your car clipped to your visor. And dedicated sensing devices like heart rate monitors, sport watches, bike computers and pedometers? No good reason a phone couldn’t replace those either. Home automation solutions have always suffered from terrible user interfaces. I think that the beautiful device you carry around with you in your pocket solves this problem.

Its 2009 and we’ve already got chips available for purchase that can record and playback 720p video. In a phone. That you already carry with you.

This is the often-talked about Convergence Device(tm). So my question is, what other devices will be gobbled up by the ever-expanding capabilities of smart phones?

I see a future where the peripheral device, or last-mile device still exists. It will communicate with your phone wirelessly, allowing your smartphone to do all of the heavy data processing and presentation on your beautiful touch screen. But a dedicated device that tries to do the whole thing? Forget about. The convergence device is going to eat your lunch.