OPINION: 2024 was a groundbreaking year on so many levels for consumer technology. Generative AI brought arguably the biggest shift change since the smartphone itself became popular. 2025 promises to be even bigger. Here’s what I’m excited about heading into the New Year in tech.
2024 is in the books, and I can’t say i enjoyed it the change in the tech landscape. I’ve been doing this a long time and sometimes I think younger and less world-weary voices are needed to embrace and be excited about the era of AI that has me more fearful than hopeful.
Then I look ahead of what’s elsewhere, and it makes me realise what I love about breakneck consumer technology is still alive and well. Improving lives, providing us with enjoyment and entertainment, breaking new ground in terms of visual fidelity, better sound, more seamless experiences in the home, and delivering scarcely believable wearables that can keep us healthy and vital.
And yes, even some of the AI stuff does actually sound pretty cool.
Here’s the prospective technology that has me happy and hopeful for the year ahead in tech.
Save $70 on the Apple Watch 10
Amazon US is selling the Apple Watch Series 10 for a bargain $329. That’s the joint lowest price we’ve seen yet and a $70 saving.
GTA 6 rules the world
Whether it’s the MCU’s Avengers 74: Age of Rapidly Diminishing Returns or the long-awaited spin-off of Star Wars Origin Story for Max Rebo from the Jabba’s Palace Band, the big Disney-owned franchises have dominated the entertainment landscape for well over a decade now. If not that, it’s big cultural events that require a portmanteau, like *cringe* Barbenheimer or people describing a couple of weeks in July listening to Charli xcx as “an era”
So, it’s good to see video games take back the limelight. It’s been a while since a video game was the most anticipated entertainment property of the year. GTA 6 is most certainly that.
With a broad release window of ‘2025’ it’ll be almost 12 years since GTA 5 and 14 years since development of GTA 6 was confirmed. In move terms, the only equivalent that springs to mind is the 16 years between Return of the Jedi in 1983 and The Phantom Menace in 1999. Let’s hope, for GTA fans’ sake, the outcome is better!
Fans are already breaking down the trailers scene-by-scene for clues about the plot, characters, and the return to Liberty City. Visually the game will have a remarkably lifelike feel. From what we’ve seen, it’ll almost be like the a choose your own adventure, playable GTA movie fans could only dream of since the last visit to Liberty City.
I’m not a huge GTA fan but I live in south Florida and I’m looking forward to see how my ludicrous, over-the-top, no-holds-barred adopted home state has been represented in the game in 2025.
Nintendo enters a new generation
It takes a lot to overshadow the launch of a new Nintendo console, so it’s likely the Nintendo Switch 2 will share billing with GTA 6 for the biggest gaming launch of the year.
It’s not so much the console that’ll be the most exciting element of this release. We pretty much know at this point it’ll be a souped-up Switch rather than an overhaul. After the Wii U debacle, that’s probably wise.
However, the announcement of a new Nintendo console means new games! Maybe a new mainline Super Mario game for the first time since the launch of the original Switch? Maybe Mario Kart 9 too?
What else does Nintendo have in store to reawaken that childlike spirit and how can the Switch 2 make those experiences better than ever.
The expectations are high. Nintendo will surely deliver when it announces the Switch 2 in the first three months of 2025.
Apple starts to take over the home
I’m sitting here writing this on a MacBook, listening to music via Apple Music on an iPhone connected to AirPods. Apple has monopolised my personal device usage (save the Garmin I’m also wearing), but next stop is taking over the home.
The long-awaited HomePod x iPad device is scheduled to arrive in 2025 and it could be inspired by the iMac G4, one of the most iconic products in Apple’s long history of great design. A rotating screen with an arm, and a solid base hosting a speaker. We can imagine it running on the forthcoming, conversational Siri and offer an improved interface that makes smart home control even easier.
This, according to reports, is just the beginning of Apple’s bid to take over the home. Further down the line, it’s a video doorbell powered by Face ID, then a home robot that can follow you around the home helping you out with various tasks. The latter may be years away, but we’ll surely look back on 2025 as the year Apple got serious about smart home hardware after letting third-parties rule the roost on the HomeKit platform until now.
Wearables become primary health care
Consumer wearables started off as health trackers like the Fitbit, then they shifted more towards cramming as much of the smartphone experience as possible on to our wrist. Now they’re gravitating back towards being a personal triage device with insanely advanced sensors and machine-learning informed algorithms that can act as a personal health dashboard. Your wearable knows you’re getting sick before you do.
As well as tracking your general wellness, sleep and fitness goals more accurately than ever the introduction of irregular heartbeats, sleep apnea, and nasty fall detection have proven lifesaving. The same goes for advances in satellite connectivity.
Next, those living with high blood pressure and conditions like diabetes are about to have a much easier time of it. The likes of Apple and Samsung are working on continuous blood pressure tracking and non-invasive blood glucose tracking.
This miniaturisation, to the point of placing this tech within a watch, would be a remarkable technological achievement. 2025 may be the year it finally arrives in a Galaxy Watch or Apple Watch near you.
Personal AI moves towards the “agentic”
Apple has promised us a much more conversational Siri assistant in 2025, Amazon’s Alexa is likely to get a big revamp that requires a subscription, and Google is likely to go even further with Gemini Live to the point where you don’t even know you’re speaking to a bot any more.
After years of swearing at voice assistants for misinterpreting our commands 2025 might actually be the year we appreciate everything they do for us.
Speaking of doing stuff for us, the third wave of AI is on the way.
Generative AI, which responds to your prompts, is now mainstream. However, that relies on you to be proactive with a request. Agentic AI, the touted next generation, will not.
“Agentic” is likely to be a word you hear a lot in 2025 as AI moves towards doing stuff on our behalf, under some assumptions it’s something we want done. In some ways, it’s thought AI agents could become a second brain, making suggestions for your daily life, activities, calendar, home needs and then just carrying out those tasks for you.
It’s kinda scary because, in some ways, it’ll involve handing over responsibility to the AI. And we’ve all seen that movie. And Arnie is getting too old for this s**t.
If that can eventually be paired with home robotics, we might move closer to that eventuality where, as the writer Joanna Maciejewska put it: “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so I can do art and writing. Not AI to do my art and writing so I can do my laundry and dishes.”
Quite.
My personal wishes
Here’s a few things I’d like to put on my 2025 wishlist…
- Streaming companies to acknowledge enough is enough with the price hikes and give us a bit of cost of living leeway. Fat chance, I know.
- A mountable smart display that can double up as a secondary television. I have the perfect spot in my office picked out. I’d thought about the new Echo Show 21, but it’s still too thick and clunky.
- A new pair of Apple AirPods Pro or AirPods Max that can carry hi-resolution, lossless audio over wireless. This is infinitely achievable because other doing it. Get it sorted, Apple.
- The unrelenting focus on AI to slow down a little bit. It feels like there’s an opportunity to take stock after what’s been a breakneck year of experimental features being released into the wild before they’re ready, (because the big players still need us to train them) with less than acceptable results. Can we just take a break here, guys?
- A crap year for Elon Musk. A really, really crap year for Elon Musk is probably pretty great for humanity.
