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Expectations For 2014 In The Smartphone Industry

Finally, the old year 2013 is gone, it has become history, one we have to refer to in the past tense. 

It didn't go without a lot of notable events either good or bad.  In 2013, there was rise and fall of individuals, products and companies. Some products stood out and some that didn't really raise eyebrows. 

In January 2013, BlackBerry unveiled its BlackBerry 10 range of devices, the Z10 and Q10 which at first seemed like a flop but quickly gathered momentum and steadily rising to its success stage, Nokia also started with the Lumia series with Lumia 520 releasing in February. Samsung didn't waste time in announcing their Samsung Galaxy S4 in March while Google announced their Moto X for August and one of the most anticipated release of 2013 was the iPhone 5S which was announced in September. 

Also in September, October and November, Infinix Mobility, the French company released the Infinix X570 and Infinix X520 smartphones respectively followed by Google's own Nexus 5 released in November. 
TECNO Mobility also didn't keep silent as it releases a lot of devices close to the end of the year with the Tecno Phantom AIII being the last to be released in December.

In 2013, specifications of smartphones produced reach a new high with Apple releasing the first 64bit processor and a Finger print sensor for the iPhone 5S. 

Camera for smartphones also got better with Nokia releasing a whooping 41MP camera on a smartphone although there was a 41MP camera on Nokia phone in 2012 however, the 2013 version was more improved. Also, RAM and Processor cores for smartphones hit a new high record of 3GB RAM and the Samsung Exoynos Octa core embedded in the Samsung S4 having 8 processing cores. Apple also registered her strength in this area by releasing 128GB solid state memory for the custom made Gold iPhone 5S.

2013 didn't end there, CEOs of companies either resigned or got fired e.g Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Heins Thorsten of BlackBerry respectively. New ones also took their place like John Chen. 

In the apps and software section, 2013 saw the release of iOS 7 to us by Apple followed by Google's own KitKat 4.4 and BlackBerry 10 OS and other notable apps like Cover, Plant vs Zombies, infinity blade III, amongst numerous others were released. 

Finally, 2013 saw the usual plethora of court cases due to patent infringement. We know the one between Samsung and Apple isn't going anywhere for a long time not even in 2014 and not to also mention the one between Nokia and HTC which eventually got certain HTC devices banned in Germany and perhaps in UK too. 

If we fail to mention the icing on the cake which is the eventual untethered Jailbreak of iOS 7 and iOS 6.1.3/6.1.4/6.1.5, we would have committed a terrible sin. Thanks to the Evad3rs and iH8sn0w team for releasing the Apple bars place on its devices. 

iOS 7 and 6 were finally jailbroken in December 2013 which is a very laudable and important achievement in the Jailbreak community. Thanks to the hard work of the @evad3rs and @iH8sn0w team.

2013 was really an eventful year with its good and it's bad but it's gone and now it's history, one that everyone needs to learn from. Oh and of course history always repeat itself. 

2014 is here, very new with so much potential for greatness and success from all mobile device manufacturers. 

A taste of what to expect in 2014 would be shown off at the CES 2014 event which is scheduled to begin January 7th. 

Also, Samsung has hinted that a reply to Apple's 64bit processor would be heard in the form of its own 128bit processor for smartphones. Well, that is huge. Samsung is also working on a eye scanning sensor for controlling the Samsung Galaxy devices. This technology is also a reply to Apple's fingerprint sensor and Apple will also be replying Samsung Gear smart watch with its own iWatch set to be released between 1st - 2nd quarter of 2014.

As someone rightly said in the comments section "the above shows that the mobile war is being fought without much thought to the consumer. Apple does A, Samsung and the others have to do A+. Samsung does A+, the others and Apple have to do A+++. Its ridiculous."

Apple, Samsung, Google, BlackBerry, Lenovo, LG, HTC, NOKIA TECNO, Infinix Mobility etc. All these smartphone companies have a lot to prove and achieve in 2014 and we the consumers are at the receiving end of it all.

We are watching and highly expectant of the great devices that would be unveiled in this new year. 

What are your expectations for the smartphone industry on 2014? What new feature or specification do you want to see in a smartphone launched in 2014? Drop your comments below.

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