-Hi, I'm Bridget Carey and welcome to CNET's Future of Series where we talk about the big companies and trends to look out for in 2013 and I'm here with executive editor, Roger Cheng who follows the mobile industry very closely.
So, let's talk about what we can expect in cellphones and mobile next year.
We have 2 companies that are hoping for a success story.
We have Microsoft with the Windows phone 8 and Research in Motion with Blackberry 10.
Do you think any of those 2 can really make attraction next year and have some good news?
-Well, both of them are putting a lot of energy, a lot of resources behind trying to create this breakout hit, but to be honest I think for next year neither of them were gonna really make a real impact.
I think they're both gonna do well enough to keep going to survive, but you're not gonna see any kind of breakout hit either from Blackberry 10 or Windows phone 8.
-Oh, well one that could let me spice things out is T-Mobile.
They're gonna get not only the iPhone, but they're also gonna be offering a new way that I think about paying for your phone.
Instead of a subsidy, you might pay upfront all at once and have a lower data plan or pay a little now and have these monthly installments kind of like lay-away.
How do you think people are gonna respond to that whether it's a higher price tag upfront for phone than they're used to seen or this lay-away kind of monthly installment plan, how are we gonna react?
-Well, it depends on how well T-mobile actually communicates this new plan to these customers.
This is actually a better overall plan for customers in a long term.
Right now, under the current model wherein you pay your $200 on iPhone, you give the subsidy, but in return you pay a much higher monthly fee every month until the life of your contract.
Under this plan, it sort of-- it's a bit more transparent.
You either pay complete-- the full price of the phone where it should which minimally is as high or use our pay in monthly installments, but-- so the benefit of this is you-- you pay on lower monthly fee for data, voice service, text messages and you do save money in the long run.
Again, the whole point is-- the whole challenge is whether or not table book can get this message across the customers.
Right now, it's working a little bit, but they really not to get aggressive with their messaging.
-All right, here's another question for you.
How about mobile payments?
That's a topic that seems to go nowhere.
Even Google is backing it and I don't see any attraction of this picking it up.
It's-- What I'm referring to is the ability to just kind of waive your phone over a cash register instead of using your wallet to pay you, use your phone.
Is this gonna take off?
Is this gonna go anywhere next year?
-Right.
Like you said, Google, the cellphone carriers, the banks, there are a lot of big players that have been pushing mobile payments.
This is a new solution for the future.
Unfortunately, that has only happened-- the problem has been Apple.
The iPhone 5 did not include [unk] technology, which has served the-- the key technology.
You need to do that magical waiving of the phone to pay at the register.
Because the iPhone doesn't have that, it's really sort of a big hurdle for mobile payments to kind of get it done because customers are really gonna see this in a kind of mass way.
Other phones have adapted it, but I just mentioned customers just don't see the real use in it right now.
-So the only way for people to get use to that idea is for Apple to do it I guess.
-Unfortunately, yeah.
I mean, the iPhone has-- there are so many iPhone users that-- that's what-- that's what is gonna take formal payments to really take off.
-Well, thanks Roger for joining us and thank you for watching our Future of Series.
For CNET, I'm Bridget Carey.
