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The future of phones depends on the future of apps

As MWC approaches, what comes after the smartphone?

We barely think about them because it’s so easy to take for granted that all your third-party software will work on your next phone, but you’d never consider buying a device that can’t run your banking app or ridehailing service of choice. There have been several leaks pointing toward a transparent laptop from Lenovo, and I suspect we’ll see its subsidiary Motorola trot out the bendable smartphone concept it showed off last October. But if manufacturers want to move on from selling increasingly capable black rectangles, they’ll be facing an uphill battle unless they can work in lockstep with the millions of third-party apps that have gone through their own process of refinement for over a decade.

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