Of all our technology, I truly think the smartphone is one of the most impressive and futuristic things ever invented. It’s the kind of thing Star Trek thought was hundreds of years in the future and that most sci-fi failed to imagine. It is individually transformative in a way that space flight will probably never be. Our information tech is likely to continue racing forward and this current moment will look analog in comparison.
There was a great scene in Station 11 which is partially set after civilization-destroying pandemic in which one character who was born before the pandemic explains to someone who was born after how ride sharing apps worked on a cell phone. It's magic of you describe it from scratch. The tiny device has access to a detailed mail of the entire planet, knows where you are and then a car shows up to transport you to your destination without exchanging and tangible money or even talking about it.
It's also telling that older SciFi gets this all wrong. In Asimov's Lucky Starr the protagonist had a space ship that can travel through the outer layers of the sun and someone had a dwelling on an hollowed out asteroid. Tables use energy fields for easier cleaning. Yet, the ships board computer doesn't even have a display and needs to print everything.
Asimov envisioned printers on spaceships and every evening I put on a pair of goggles that lets me interact with an omnidirectional volumetric display with millimeter accurate head and hand tracking. I think we are starting to outrun our own imagination.
