I am currently living in a hostel close to Hyde Park. Only yesterday, I had a conversation with another resident about how AI is soon going to take over the world and that we might not need conventional apps and smartphones one day. Well, it appears that the day might be closer than we had thought because Deutsche Telekom, the majority shareholder in T-Mobile, has just shared a teaser of a phone that completely rids you of the apps and brings an all-AI interface to get the job done.
Deutsche Telekom's T Phone could be either the T-1000 or T-800 that we once dreamed about
Deutsche Telekom has decided to work with Qualcomm and Brain.ai. This collaboration has resulted in a phone that does not have any apps, and the entirety of the device is fueled by cloud-based AI. The phone currently has an unoriginal name and is called T Phone (Terminator vibes intensify), and it will be shown off later this month at MWC 2024 in Barcelona.
In addition to that T Phone, Deutsche Telekom is also planning on showing a phone powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with on-device AI. We are not sure if that is also going to be in the concept stage, but it is really interesting to picture a phone that solely uses AI to get all the things done for you.
"Artificial intelligence and Large Language Models (LLM) will soon be an integral part of mobile devices," said Jon Abrahamson, chief product and digital officer at Deutsche Telekom. "We will use them to improve and simplify the lives of our customers. Our vision is a magenta concierge for an app-free smartphone. A real everyday companion that fulfills needs and simplifies digital life."
If there is one thing that Deutsche Telekom gets right, it is that it is a fight out there. AI is becoming more and more prominent, and we already have phones with their specific artificial intelligence in play. All of this makes it a great time to bring it to the next level by having a phone that completely powers itself using AI.
So, what is the T Phone going to do? Well, Deutsche Telekom does have some ideas as far as the applications of the phone are concerned. For instance, the phone will be able to book tickets and hotels for you. It can help you as your concierge, even helping you achieve your goals and telling you how to get there. If you are not into details, the phone can help you take care of all the nitty gritty stuff that you do not like to deal with. You can use voice commands to make your life easier with the phone. The phone also aims to eliminate the need to be tethered to specific apps, and while the company has not talked about how it plans to replace apps, the ambitions are certainly there.
Now, what the Deutsche Telekom is doing with T Phone is not something that can be overlooked. While it certainly is an enterprising idea, it is not entirely new. Remember Nextbit Robin? Even though the phone was an Android device, it used a cloud-first approach, but back then, artificial intelligence was not as progressive as it is today. Keeping that in mind, I am hoping that this will turn out to be something cool, even if it will just be in the concept stage at the start.
News Source: Deutsche Telekom
