Why do phones need apps? At this year's Mobile World Congress, the future of the smartphone and how we connect were firmly under the microscope. Deutsche Telekom and Brain.ai demoed one such instance at MWC: a smartphone with no apps. It's just an idea for now, but it's prompting an interesting question: Why assume the smartphone of the future has apps at all? But the smartphone industry is slumping, and there's a "need to invigorate the upgrade cycle," Milanesi told BI.

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Persons: —, Sam Altman, There's, Altman, Jony, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Carolina Milanesi, Milanesi, Tom Butler, I'm, Butler, Lenovo's Butler, it's Organizations: Service, Congress, MWC, Las, CES, Deutsche Telekom, Brain.ai, Qualcomm, Bloomberg Locations: Carolina, PAU, AFP