Mobile Technology - How will 2010 make our smartphones smarter?

What will 2010 bring for phones?

 2009 saw an influx of smartphones - the Palm Pre, the N900 and of course, saw the iPhone standing tall among all of them. However, despite the smartphone boom, change is coming and 2010 is going to see a lot of developments for next generation phones.

Well, like 2009, social media is going to play a big part - Twitter, Facebook will rule the roost but if you're not able to access any of the other popular network sites by the end of the year on your smartphone something is wrong.

However, as more and more people browse the net on their phone, on of the biggest game changers will be however the choice of interfaces and what proves to be popular.

Firefox, rapidly becoming Internet Explorer's biggest rival on home computers, have finally bought their browser to the mobile and, as you expect, features tabbed browsing, session syncing between mobile and desktops. Its ability to enable the user to include 40 additional add-ons also makes it the most customisable browser on a handset. One popular add-on is the one from Twitter that allows the user to tweet from the address bar.

Expect this to be one of the most popular downloads through the year, however it won't be alone.

Making a big splash at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Opera showcased their ultra-fast mobile browser Mini for the iPhone which is yet to be submitted for App Store approval. However, when it is, it is expected to be a big hit with claims that it will load pages up to six times faster than the iPhone's current Safari browser.

Earlier this month, Samsung announced its first bada powered phone, the S8500 Wave. The operating system has been developed by Samsung in an effort to take on Apple, Google and Windows in the mobile phone market.

By Timon Singh