2025 Tech Trends: Latest trends, products to expect, and more

Note: This feature was first published on 31 December 2024.

December is a time of reflection and prognostication. Back in 2023, we gazed into our crystal ball to decipher key tech trends and expectations, and almost everything has come to pass. Well, apart from the take-up rate of the Apple Vision Pro, it's still early days, considering it's a brand new genre and a high lifestyle cost to overcome. 

As we contemplate what 2024 has given us, the team also had a chance to speculate what could lie ahead in the new year. Sure, there will always be year-on-year updates as something being slimmer, faster and shinier, but what we're looking out for are longer terms trends that will unravel, plus anticipated gear of notable significance.

Happy New Year everyone!

1. New Apple iPhone SE

2025 is going to be an important year for the iPhone not because of the new iPhone 17 series or the rumoured iPhone 17 Air, but because Apple is expected to be announcing an all-new iPhone SE in the spring.

The iPhone SE has been around for nearly nine years, but it's not the commercial success that the regular iPhone and iPhone Pro are. Honestly, it’s not surprising when you see the phone. It’s amazing that in 2024 Apple continues to sell a phone that has bezels this big and a screen this small. It doesn’t matter how powerful or affordable the phone is when it looks like that.

Happily, if the rumours are to be believed, the next iPhone SE will be dramatically different and better. For starters, it will supposedly be based on the iPhone 14. This means it’ll ditch its thick unsightly bezels for an all-display design, and its anachronistic Touch ID button for a Face ID authentication system. The display will likely be OLED, and although we don’t know what chip it’ll have, there’s a good chance it’ll be something fairly modern because Apple will want it to support Apple Intelligence. In other words, it sounds like the new iPhone SE could finally be the entry-level iPhone Apple should have made in the first place.

Crucially, a new iPhone SE couldn’t have come at a better time. Chinese phone makers are enjoying a resurgence and sales of the regular iPhone and Pro iPhones are said to be stagnating. Apple will need to break into new markets to keep its phone business chugging along and shareholders happy.

Read next:

• The next iPhone SE could be launching in March 2025
• Leaked phone case suggests new iPhone SE 4 might have two cameras and no Action Button
• The next iPhone SE could get the A18 chip and Apple’s own 5G modem
• Another report says the next iPhone SE will launch next year with an OLED display
• New iPhone SE renders show iPhone 14 chassis with Face ID

2. The rise of agentic AI and how it affects our smartphones

The current state of consumer-facing generative AI in smartphones is rather piecemeal and under control. Depending on the app or the phone maker, you may or may not magically edit photos, transcribe and summarise documents and news articles, or ask ChatGPT and Gemini for various things if you need to kickstart an idea, a few lines of code, or a report. However, all that can change massively with the introduction of agentic AI on these devices.

To best understand what separates agentic AI from generative AI, you can read this explainer on Nvidia's blog. Its sheer potential lies in its ability to be a personal butler that can carry out a chain of mundane instructions for a pedestrian task. For instance, the phone's agentic AI can fill out forms, make complaints, and forward them to the respective authorities without you lifting a finger (sounds wonderful for reporting scams). Or, with a single ask, it can automatically colour-correct and beautify a whole batch photos from the same venue without even tapping much inside your Gallery or Photos app. Previously, we said AI is the battleground of phones, and agentic AI has finally given a tangible form to the battle itself. May the most helpful device win.

3. The arrival of predictive AI and its benefits for healthcare

We've all seen what using generative AI can bring. But it isn't the only use of AI that can benefit us. In healthcare for example, predictive AI uses algorithms and machine learning (ML) techniques to analyse vast amounts of patient data, ranging from demographics and medical history to diagnostic tests and treatment outcomes. It can then make predictions about patient health and healthcare outcomes. These predictions can help healthcare providers deliver personalised care, improve patient safety, and optimise resource allocation.

In Singapore, for example, there are a number of healthcare trials being carried out with predictive AI being used to generate results around depression and weight loss. Using predictive AI, healthcare operators can perform early-stage detection and carry out intervention programs. They can also predict how well medications would work together or if best suited alone. 

4. The year Android headsets make a comeback with Extended Reality 

As magical as the Apple Vision Pro is, its extreme cost and delayed rollout of a more cost-efficient version meant the door was wide open for Android headsets to take a stab at this market again.

Although VR headsets have been around for a decade, they have only found a home thus far in industrial/medical applications and for serious PC gaming. Samsung was one of the earliest adopters of this new virtual realm through their Gear VR debut in 2014 and a bold US$99 price point to grow the adoption rate of its platform and device. By 2017, Samsung had shipped over 5 million VR headsets, but the platform, for the most part, was rather limited by low visual fidelity and processing power to offer any breakthrough usage. Remember how Google Daydream wanted to improve VR platforms and partner products creating fully untethered standalone headsets? All of these ended in 2020 when both Samsung and Google ended their respective support and VR development departments for being unable to move the market or excite developers enough to create the possibilities that only existed in our heads -- until the Apple Vision Pro came along.

The Vision Pro's masterful execution of Apple's Vision, fantastic immersion, tight ecosystem integration, advanced gesture-oriented UX, and impeccable demos showcased reignited everyone's interest in the industry. With over four since the death of VR headsets for the masses, enough time has passed for headset experiences to evolve through more capable processors (many even equipped with NPUs), more affordable and accurate sensors, and improve latency concerns through the continued development of VR headsets for PC gaming.

Rumours have been around for a long time that extended reality (XR) Android headsets, which can tackle augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) applications, will make a comeback. Still, it was difficult to fathom who might pour in loads of money to develop a new platform after both Google and Samsung exited their VR business earlier. Now, Google has officially announced a new operating system, Android XR, which was co-developed with Samsung and Qualcomm. Incorporating Gemini AI into the new OS, this will bring about interacting with content in a whole new way, from natural language communication to achieve various onerous tasks to intuitive interactions like Circle to Search without traditional input devices or pulling out your phone.

This makes perfect sense through this tripartite relationship where Google supplies a more modern OS for the new era, Qualcomm already supplying the leading hardware for mobile phones to power next-gen wearables through their Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chip for 'spectacular visuals', speedy low latency connectivity and the necessary processing chops, while Samsung offering the most robust Android ecosystem of products is the perfect launch partner to rekindle the love of headsets.

In fact, Samsung is rumoured to launch its XR headsets/glasses in their January 2025 Unpacked event. And as with all things powered by Google, you can expect all the other Android ecosystem partners to come on board to offer their take to invigorate the wearables scene with XR headsets/glasses, but without the Vision Pro's heady price tag. It's hard to tell if it will finally take off this time, but it will certainly have a much better chance than a decade ago.

5. How the Nintendo Switch 2 might inspire the next generation of PC gaming handhelds

The Nintendo Switch 2, set for release in 2025 (we are guessing early 2025), is set to push the boundaries of mobile gaming by offering a more refined experience while maintaining the hybrid appeal that made the original Switch so popular. With an upgraded processor and graphics (rumoured to be an NVIDIA SoC), the Switch 2 is expected to not only improve performance but also expand the kinds of games that can be comfortably played on the go. The ability to seamlessly switch between handheld and docked modes will continue to make it a versatile choice for many gamers, from the casual to the core gamers. We can expect better battery life, a sharper display (although it might not be an OLED), and enhanced multiplayer features – improvements that will likely raise the bar for mobile gaming.

The success of the Switch 2, which isn’t guaranteed, could signal a significant shift in how we think about portable gaming, pushing it closer to console-level experiences without sacrificing convenience. Nintendo’s track record of solid first-party titles and unique gameplay mechanics means the Switch 2 won’t just be another portable system; it could redefine what’s possible in the mobile space – where do you think the Legion Go’s detachable controllers took its inspiration from?

If the upcoming console can deliver on its promise, it’ll help set the tone for a new era in mobile gaming, and it will be interesting to see how the new handheld/console hybrid might inspire the next generation of PC gaming handhelds from the likes of ROG and Legion.

6. Quantum computers are coming, and they will change everything!

There was a flurry of activity around 10 years ago regarding the development of quantum computing. This was at a time when many debated the death of Moore’s Law and the sustained scalability of microprocessor chip designs beyond 1nm. We followed some of the early breakthroughs, such as IBM’s 5-cubit quantum computer. And then, nothing tangible for a while.

2025 has been declared the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology by UNESCO, and quantum computing is the talk of the town again. In early December 2024, Google announced Willow, a breakthrough chip that can overcome one of the biggest hurdles in quantum computing development: decoherence, caused by the inherently unstable nature of qubits. Google’s Willow boasts a level of error correction that finally makes commercial large-scale quantum computing viable.

Looking back at the aforementioned IBM story in 2016, we might as well have been talking about IBM mainframes circa 1950s running on vacuum tubes. It took less than 10 years for quantum computers to go from 5 cubits to 105 cubits, a 2000% increase. What can you do with a 105-cubit quantum computer? I’ll quote Hartmut Neven, Founder and Lead, Google Quantum AI here from this blog about Willow so I don't get the number wrong, "It performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10²⁵ or 10 septillion years. If you want to write it out, it’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. This mind-boggling number exceeds known timescales in physics and vastly exceeds the age of the universe".

Now, tell me you're not excited about quantum computing after this.

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