Since the development of mobile phones more than 30 years ago, technology has come along leaps and bounds. New breakthroughs in the phone world are happening every day, all the time by many various inventors. New terminologies are coined, phones that have a higher levels of difficulty to even use are created, and the tech-heads are loving it!
See the following YouTube video. You’ll see the behaviour of one “enthusiastic” female.
But what about the rest of us? The rest of the public? Is it exciting to think of what might be created in the next few years in the world of mobile phones, or is it more scary? It seems, at times, that technology in general is moving too fast for some members of the public. Perhaps it may be better to go back to a simpler time where you could speak to someone by simply visiting them in person. With all the developments in smartphones are we forgetting that the original idea of mobile telephones was to keep in touch with family and friends, this was simply an easier way to telephone – on the go communication.
Smartphones may be the reason we are becoming an increasingly anti-social world. With all of the things available to use on our mobile phones (besides the ‘call’ function) where is the time to contact people? We’re playing games. Listening to music. Accessing our apps. Surfing the web.
There is no wrong or right answer to these thoughts, but it seems gadgets, namely mobile phones, could be something that we all take a rest from at one time or another.
Smartphones: If this word was uttered from anyone’s mouth 15 years ago, no-one would have known what they were talking about, Fast forward to the current year, 2011, and you’d have to be living under a rock to not known what a smartphone is, and, how is differs from the simple and modest mobile phone.
“The Smartphone is the New PC.
The mobile phone is the new personal computer. The desktop computer is not going
away, but the smartphone market is growing fast. Phones are being used as computers
by more people and for more purposes. Smartphones are generally cheaper than
computers, more convenient because of their portability, and often more useful with the
context provided by geolocation. (c.f Allen S., Graupera V., Lundrigan L.)”
Today, numerous routine duties that we accomplish at this time on a laptop or personal desktop computer can now be carried out and completed on a smartphone. As discussed in my first blog entry: “Mobile phones & Development. New technology versus Old technology.” Modern mobile (smart)phones include many other functions besides the humble call option, SMS, and sometimes the modest ‘snake’ game. No, these phones can include a camera, internet browser, many apps (applications), email, and intricate video games. Two of the more popular smartphones on the market today is the iPhone (by Apple Inc.), and Android phone (by Google)
Both of these smartphones include different applications that can be added to you phone and utilised. Some are free, while others can range in price from cheap & affordable to ridiculously expensive.
“In September 2009, Apple announced that more than two billion applications had been
downloaded from its App Store. With more than 100,000 applications available, Apple
has transformed the mobile phone market by dramatically increasing consumer
spending on applications and successfully shifting independent developer mindshare
toward mobile application development. By the end of 2009, Google Android’s open
platform was reported to have over 20,000 apps in the Android Market online store.
Mobile applications are not new…Examples of early smartphone and PDA devices from
this era included the Apple Newton Message Pad, Palm Pilot, Handspring (and later Palm) Treo,
Windows Pocket PC, and others…
The iPhone revitalized the landscape for mobile application development. Apple created
an easy-to-use interface for purchasing and installing third-party applications, and more
importantly, promoted that capability to their users and prospective customers.”
(c.f Allen S., Graupera V., Lundrigan L.)
So as you can read from the prior passage, applications have become big business for smartphones and it isn’t something new as it states that the mobile applications were being developed originally when the earliest mobile phone were around.
When discussing smartphones is has become clear to me that people are familiar with iPhones, but are not completely certain what an Android phone is. It is simply another version of a smartphone that also allows and encourages use of applications that actually offers more of them to choose from and also fewer barriers.
“Android™ is an open mobile platform developed by Google™.
It sits on your phone in much the same way that a computer
operating system resides on your Mac or PC, controlling all
the hardware functions and providing a solid base for other
programs such as web browsers, email clients, media players
and so on. You can use it to do many of the same things you
can with a computer, plus loads more.”
(c.f Clare, A.)
Watch the following YouTube clip and see both phones up close and what they have to offer.
Source:
Allen S., Graupera V., Lundrigan L, 2010, Pro Smartphone Cross-Platform Development: iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Android Development and Distribution, retrieved from SpringerLink, E-book
Universally, almost every family or household has access to a telephone these days. The younger generation and young families think nothing of having a landline and also their own mobile phone. It’s seems most today in middle class societies do not mind having two phone bills. Thinking about mobile phones in the context of the users, especially users of the smart phones, it seems majority of these phone users are the 60 years old and under bracket, but what about the rest, i.e. – the older generation? Older members of the society may use their phones differently than younger people.
In the following excerpt, Authors McCreadie and Tinker discussed their study of older people and mobile phones, and the feedback received:
“In terms of the design of their mobile phones, the three regular users did not report difficulties. This seems to argue that the more familiar you are with the technology, the easier it is to use, which makes sense…Elsewhere we have argued that the acceptability of technology depends on the interaction of a ‘felt need’ by an individual with the ‘quality’ of technology in its broadest sense.
In the context of mobile phones:
• ‘felt need’ is likely to depend on factors such as
income and life-style
• the ‘quality’ of technology would appear to depend
on:
- Its reliability
- Its success in addressing the relevant need
- Its simplicity of design
- its ease of use
- its cost.
We may find that if the price of mobile phones falls,
and designers are more sensitive to the simplicity
requirement, that, just as ownership of landline
telephones increased dramatically over 30 years, so
will the use of mobiles, and older people will be a
To sum up – It seems sometimes these phone companies forget about the WHOLE audience that is out there. Yes, it is lucrative to develop phones that are attractive to the younger generations, after all, a company like Apple has made billions upon billions with their products, but sometimes it may be best to keep things simple. Do we need complicated phones? Or should these companies continue developing and finding new things?
Source:
McCreadie &Tinker, 2005, Working with Older People, Volume 9 Issue 4, Pavilion
These days it’s hard to find an individual in society who does not own a mobile phone. Since mobile phones were introduced to the public more than 20 years ago they have only become more popular and better than ever.
“The first cellular mobile phone systems were introduced in the early 1980s based on analogue standards. Analogue systems are in the process of being phased out, with 1.9 million subscribers worldwide at the end of 2006, down from 4.7 million at end-2005, as they are being superseded by digital networks.” (c.f Guennoun,Z.& Jaloun, M)
To go back to the beginning, I’ll give you a simple definition of mobile phone:
Mobile phones are phones that have the capability to be used on the go, almost anywhere and at any time are they able to make and receive telephone calls to and from any phone number that is available. The means one mobile phone can call another or even a fixed line phone, and vice versa. This is able to be done internationally and it works by connecting to a cellular network which is provided by a mobile phone network/carrier.
Over time there has been much development on the simple mobile phone. Once upon a time mobile phones were only able to be used to make calls and receive them. The next development that came about was SMS – Short Message Service. This mobile to mobile service has become a huge service that has evolved to become simpler and advanced as the time goes on.
As well as SMS, modern mobile phones of today also play host to a range of other services.
These are: MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), Bluetooth, internet access, email, games and camera/photography, plus much more.) The phones that offer all or most of these extras are known as “smartphones” which I will be discussing and dissecting in another blog entry.
Marty Cooper, inventor of the first mobile phone
Source:
Guennoun, Z.& Jaloun, M. 2010, Wireless Sensor Network: Wireless Mobile Evolution to 4G, Published Online April 2010 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/wsn) viewed October 2011.
