Chris Deering, former Chairman and President of Sony Europe, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and now Chairman of Handheld Learning, recently posted a very interesting article concerning the future of Apple’s new iPhone. Deering suggests that critics of the device, who have complained about the devices antenna size, voice mail and Bluetooth functionality, are missing the point: His list of reasons why gives us a compelling picture of the future:

1. “The terms TV and PC will sound as outdated as “8 Track” tape decks within 2-3 years. Everything will be capable of delivery over Internet Protocol (IP).”

2. “The ‘receiver device’ is as likely to be a wireless mobile device as a set top box. Personal files including purchase movies and all self generated photos, home video and text file folders will be stored remotely and accessed on demand to whatever screen or speaker, in home, on desk, on family room big screen, in car, in hand, that the user needs them to use. PC will no longer be a relevant term as all user interfaces will be interactive and capable of keyboard type input as well as voice recognition.”

3. “In this new generation, (Web 3.0) there will be ‘contextual transparency’. You will access the beginning of a video documentary on the breakfast table and then pick up where you left off when boarding the commuter train. The server will know and re purpose the content for screen size etc accordingly.

4. “The ‘server’ will also know WHERE everybody is at all times because 500mm plus mobile phones will have GPS modules in them by 2011. ‘Location Aware Servers’ will be the new frontier for targeting all kinds of adverts and helpful information.”

5. “Operating systems like Mac and Windows will give way to wireless based OS’ like Google’s Android, Nokia’s Symbian and Windows Mobile, but each of these solutions is struggling because they are ‘closed’ architecture and, to some extent, walled garden minded.”

6. “The new Apple iPhone will be a huge success outside the USA where 3G is better deployed and where ‘location aware server’ GPS services are more advanced. Ability of new iPhone to download and stream video fast and to switch between Wi-Fi and GSM will catapult it ahead of Blackberry as the optimum pocket e-mail/browser solution.”

7. “Businesses will start to provide managers with iPhones, replacing Blackberries and PDA’s. I am told that it takes less than 3 weeks to be weaned off Blackberry and onto iPhones, but have never heard of anyone going back to Black. Converts become the most outspoken evangelists.”

8. “The iPhone OS is “open but structured API” (similar to the PlayStation as a platform) meaning that independent developers of all kinds of content, including a tsunami of games, will spring up, creating massively useful and fun applications which will cross over onto traditional screens on desks and walls.”

9. “It is therefore not only possible, but likely, that iPhone OS will leapfrog any hope that Google has of making Android the solution of choice. It will have amazing tail wind.”

10. “This also could mean that Apple becomes the Microsoft of the 21st Century. Microsoft has yet to ever succeed with a Windows operating system that is not backward compatible.”

Obviously, in Deering’s opinion, the future is Apple’s to lose. Be sure to check out Deering’s full article at Handheld Learning.