The multi-screen revolution is upon us, and mobile is at the forefront of this change. The trends driving it are:

1. Processing power. For a long time, the processing we could carry around was relatively underpowered, compared with what was available on desktop devices. But we’re now seeing a breakthrough where mobile processing power can be measured in the order of gigahertz. Dual core processors will soon shift to quad core and more, and of course a lot of power will also move to the cloud.

2. Battery power. In the past five years we haven’t seen much improvement in battery technology and this is constraining handheld processing power levels. But we will see a breakthrough, partly driven by the move to electric cars as lithium ion battery technology is basically the same as that used in mobile devices.

3. Bandwidth. LTE technology will have capacity of up to 100Mbps and we’re already seeing 10 or 20Mbps on some networks. Soon the bandwidth from wireless connectivity will surpass wired connectivity — and that will represent a big disruption.

Because of the convergence of these factors, two or three years from now more people will access the Internet from handheld devices than from PCs. This will mean a revolution in how people consider websites and applications: you’ll see the world shift to thinking about mobile first.

Right now, developers are typically building concept applications using PCs, thinking users will access them on PCs. Then, as a sideline, there may be a mobile version. This will change, as they will start considering mobile devices and their constraints first, and then work out how to expand apps to a wider variety of screens.

One major development will be the growth of social, location-based computing. When people are near a place, friends or other devices, some apps will be useful in that context. For example, a tablet may pop up a notification that says: “A mobile app was found nearby, do you want to download it?”

Such apps will, for example, allow users to: see a menu and place an order in a restaurant they’ve entered; share (with permission) the library on their friend’s tablet when close by; or use a tablet to control and share content with other multimedia devices.

This accelerated access to apps which will complement the experiences users are having, wherever they happen to be, is possible now and has a strong future. We’ve only seen the start.

• Kevin Lynch is chief technology officer at Adobe Systems. He is responsible for shaping the content software giant’s long-term technology vision and driving innovation across the company. Before joining Adobe, he was chief software architect and president of product development at Macromedia, where he established the company’s mobile and devices group. He was speaking at the Open Mobile Summit in London.