For cell phones, how will the next five years change thee? In-Stat is counting thy ways.

“Increasing availability of mobile broadband, operator support for data-intensive devices, and improvements in usability for mobile devices brought about by the influence of the Apple iPhone will evolve the designs of handheld devices,” In-Stat said today.

“Consumers are nearing their limits adjusting to the added complexity of converged devices. Feature proliferation is impinging on usability. Handset vendors and mobile operators must carefully evaluate the drive toward increasingly converged devices with features and functions that add direct value to consumers,” analyst David Chamberlain explained.

Chamberlain’s report, “Future Cell Phones: Diverging the Converged Device 2008-2012,” considers the impacts of mobile Wi-Fi, video and VoIP, along with the expected doubling of smartphone sales. Wi-Fi is especially important for smartphones because it can help carriers reduce the load on 3G networks, he asserted.

What’s needed is for phones to become easier to use, not full of more features. “The problem is, the phones are doing too much. They’re getting too complex, they’re getting too expensive, operators that are subsidizing are paying a lot more,” he said. Most consumers just want longer battery life, more consistent service quality and access to the real Web instead of a walled garden, he noted.

So will there be a consumer post-modern cell phone revolution?  “I sure hope so,” he said.