As far as I know, I don’t own any computers anymore. I own screens, keyboards, and mice. The computer has disappeared. The iPhone as far as I’m concerned is about as small as useful computing can get given the limitations of technology we can currently imagine. It could get thinner, or maybe a tiny bit shorter, but any more, and it gets less useful. Despite that, there’s still a computer hidden inside there.

I can imagine a time when the screen and input devices go away, and we just speak or gesture at computers to get results, but I think that’s a long ways off. However, I think there is a near-term step that dissolves the computer even more. Not making it smaller, but doing away with it all-together.

Computers communicate to their monitors at a given data rate (I don’t want to look up that data rate, because it sounds irritating to find) -but they do. Eventually, we will be able to reliably and wirelessly communicate with devices at speeds that meet, or exceed the speeds of devices connected by cables. We may already be able to do that speed-wise, I’m not sure. But “reliability” is the big part of this equation.

Nobody can tell me that Apple cannot wirelessly synch an iPhone to a computer. They can. For sure they can. But it occasionally probably doesn’t work. Or goes slowly. Or works not at all due to interference… Whatever the reason, it’s not ready for prime time, and a cable is more reliable.

When wireless is as fast as, and as reliable as cables connecting screens to computers, the whole game will change.

At that point, the small little white rounded rectangle that is my AirPort could be my computer. If you’ve used Air Display, the software for the iPad that does screen sharing over WiFi, you know the feeling. You see it instantly… If this was faster, I wouldn’t need my computer! I could bring my extra monitor with me wherever I went. As I return to homebase, I can again have the added real-estate. But I think this is near-term thinking still.

Imagine the new Mac Mini. About the same size as an Airport. It’s connected to your internet connection and your WiFi. Or is your WiFi. Your iPad, or iPad HD that’s 35” wide can connect to it at will. As different users on the same box. Depending on permissions, able to see different resources.

Face it. Right now your computer is faster than you. It’s only going to get faster. Soon it will be faster than two, three, four, and 10 of you. At that point, your one computer can run all of your devices at once, the same as a webserver serves hundreds of users tiny 500K bunches of files today. When bandwidth increases, it no longer requires your computer to be attached to your device.

In fact, as bandwidth increases, not only on local area networks, but on the internet as well, you no longer really have to own a computer. One really, really great computer can be hundreds, or thousands of people’s computer at once. No different than Gmail is millions of people’s inbox today. When horsepower, and bandwidth increase to that point, you’re just receiving the results of computed cycles that happened nowhere near you in the form of a generated picture.

The same as movie theaters turned into TV. The same as phonographs turned into radio. Same as the printing press turned into the NY Times. Technologies climb to where small capitalistic devices become really big commune services that are free, or very cheap to consume. Not everyone needs to own them, as they become ubiquitous in their availability.

So is this a good thing? I have no idea. I’m just making wild guesses here. I could be, and likely am, totally wrong. But as I chart today’s growth, I see it heading here. Extenuating circumstances, invention, sociological changes, could all change this possible future. But no waffling. If I had to bet today, that’s what I see happening in the next 10 years.