Leading phones: Iphone and Blackberry Smart phonesWhen I had just resettled in Europe, I used to be amazed by the indifference and individuality of the people. On entering a bus, train, tram or metro, you find everybody minding his/her own business. One seeks a seat with no one else, those days outs a walkman or discman from the bag, earphones in the ears and he/she starts nodding her head or smiling to the beat of the music, without even a glance of his neighbour or people around him/her.
Back to their homes, it is the computer, television or games! Guys will laugh with their computer, at their computers and together with their computers! They chat on line with people they’ve never met, take up new digital identities as avatars online and are practically enslaved to their machines.
I was used to a different life - Life of mingling with people. Interaction is among the people. Big families and the extended family system is the order of the day. It is the insurance for the people in times of happiness and in times of sadness. Smiles are reserved for real people. Loud laughter, grinning, beaming is infectious. Everywhere you look it is the white teeth that welcomes you against the dark African faces. One can’t avoid joining in, however sad a situation.
Today with the advent of New Media and Smart phones, man’s best friend has undergone a metamorphosis; from a dog, to the walkman, discman, mP3, MP$ and now the smart phone. The smart phone embraces all qualities and more of all the previous man’s companions/gadgets.
The Wikipedia defines a smart phone as: a mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary basic feature phone. Smart phones and feature phones may be thought of as handheld computers integrated within a mobile telephone, but while most feature phones are able to run applications based on platforms such as Java ME, a smart phone allows the user to install and run more advanced applications based on a specific platform. Smart phones run complete operating system software providing a platform for application developers. A smart phone can be considered as a Personal Pocket Computer (PPC) with mobile phone functions, because these devices are mainly computers, although quite smaller than a desktop computer (DC).
Growth in demand for advanced mobile devices boasting powerful processors, abundant memory, larger screens, and open operating systems has outpaced the rest of the mobile phone market for several years. According to a study by ComScore, over 45.5 million people in the United States owned smart phones in 2010 and it is the fastest growing segment of the mobile phone market, which comprised 234 million subscribers in the United States. Despite the large increase in smart phone sales in the last few years, smart phone shipments only make up 20% of total handset shipments, as of the first half of 2010.
Just a couple of years ago, it was cool to carry a cell phone, a digital camera, a portable music player, and a personal digital assistant (PDA). Now all of those gadgets have been combined into one device, the smart phone, and it can perform a myriad of different functions. In fact, today's smart phones are almost mind-boggling in their capabilities. Just in case you are still using a regular cell phone. One can make and receive telephone calls, make conference calls and use a smart phone as speakerphones. Phones like the iPhone or a BlackBerry can do much more like surfing the web, sending and receiving email, playing music, chatting and taking pictures.
The new craze and pass time today is playing with your smart phone. On entering a public transport vehicle, you can’t fail to notice almost everyone busy with a phone. It can be receiving or making a call, chatting, watching television, surfing the net, writing or receiving email, watching videos or listening to music. Just the other day I entered a bus and realized all the passengers were busy with their smart phones. Seems the days of the dog as man’s best friend are gone.
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