High taxes, rising prices and rents, and fewer opportunities in those countries are prompting many to return to the Emirates, say experts
In years past, the answer would've been any of your house keys, watches, your favourite bag, or even sunglasses that give you that cool look.
Nowadays, the answer could be the one thing that you could depend your life - figuratively - upon: the smartphone.
And with good reason: smartphones have become the do-it-all device in the modern world, replacing many of the things that we were so used to in years past.
Heck, it's even the reason that many other technological products have either been subdued at best (cameras, laptops), left others for dead or actually killed them at worst (music players, voice recorders).
Last year, there were over 2.1 billion smartphone users in the world - that's over 28 per cent of the world's estimated 7.432 billion population during the year - and that number is projected to grow to more than 2.32 billion, figures from Statista show.
And those users would even swell to over 2.87 billion come 2020 - a no-brainer considering the continuous innovation being developed and doled out to us. Mobile phone users in general, meanwhile, are projected to surpass the five billion mark by that time.
Well, we can thank the tech heavens for blessing us with the smartphone. And here are some things that we can now do on the go with them, for whatever reason and at great convenience.
Work it out
In the past, when mobile phones still weren't 'smart', a common notion was that only business people had - or could afford - them.
Well, what a difference innovation makes.
Sure, e-mails can be exchanged in the era before the iPhone, but if you put today's smartphones and devices from those times side-by-side, it seems that the latter came from the Jurassic era. You can work on documents, spreadsheets and PDFs - sign them, even - on your smartphone and send them off to your boss. And with wider availability, even children can be bosses in their own right.
Multimedia machine
Though I do miss the Walkman, it's really more convenient that you have all your favourite music tracks in the comfort of your smartphone (and even feature phones).
Which meant that music players were, well, something we can do without. Remember: Apple, itself a trend-starter, killed off all but one of its iconic iPods.
You don't need to 'watch' it
Before smart watches, I've never had to use a wristwatch, because I've got time in my pocket.
And aside from time, I also have an alarm clock, stopwatch and world clock with me all the time. Convenient times.
GPS navigators
Advancements in map apps (read: Google Maps and Apple Maps) have rendered these devices to be put aside (in my wife's case, left stuck in our car without a battery for months).
To be fair, companies that make them are still hanging on to this day, for a couple of good reasons: they save your smartphone's battery life and data consumption.
Oh, snap!
Collaborations with high-end optics companies. Dual-lens snappers. Everything latest in mobile cameras. Let's keep this simple: unless you're a professional photographer, why do you need to have those bulky cameras when you have one in your pocket?
There are lots of other stuff that smartphones have completely dominated. And taking into consideration that they also function as controls for smart home devices, it isn't far-fetched that someday - maybe - they would come with microwaving capabilities.
- alvin@khaleejtimes.com
High taxes, rising prices and rents, and fewer opportunities in those countries are prompting many to return to the Emirates, say experts
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