Smartphones are just stupid toys. I had one and got rid of it. Well, actually, I use it as an alarm clock now.
Why is it desirable for everyone to have a smartphone? Other than to boost the profits of a company that makes them?
Wasn’t this what they said about computers also?
Smartphones are incredibly useful tools.
They give a person the entire power of the Internet in their hands.
Seriously?
You can make phone calls on it.
You can send and receive text messages on it.
You can check your voicemail on it.
You can check your email on it.
You can check facebook on it.
You can check twitter on it.
You can use it for GPS.
You can use it to read the news.
You can use it for any of a billion games.
You can listen to music on it.
You can listen to podcasts on it.
You can listen to the radio on it.
You can listen to audiobooks on it.
You can check the weather on it.
You can watch movies on it.
You can watch TV shows on it.
You can watch youtube videos on it.
You can check the time on it.
You can use it as a flashlight.
You can take pictures with it.
You can take video with it.
You can make audio recordings with it.
You can shop on it.
You can take notes on it.
You can keep your calendar and reminders on it.
You can access the World Wide Web, a vast compendium of knowledge on it.
Shall I keep going?
There are a bunch of smartphone apps that are used by business professionals. And then there are entire businesses that are built around smartphones. Uber, for instance.
At this point in 2016 “pretty soon pretty much everyone will have a smartphone” is barely even a prediction. Phones will steadily drop in price and increase in functionality. The cost of new devices will drop to commodity prices, to the point where old or obsolete phones will just be given away in the hope that the user will use it sometime, anytime, to buy something.
Cell phones aren’t toys for yuppies with money, they are ubiquitous around the world, including the third world. And the distinction between “smart phones” and “cell phones” will be obsolete in a decade since there won’t be any more dumb cell phones except carefully maintained museum pieces owned by eccentrics.
There’s still a number of uncontacted peoples who have no dealings with the wider world. And as cynical as I can be I rather doubt we’re going to attack them just so we can force smart phones on them.
Smartphones are just too small to be useful in most situations–compare the size of a PC keyboard to the keyboard on a smartphone.
Even in the poorest parts of Sudan and D.R. Congo I have been to, lots of people have smartphones.
I can type just as quickly on my smartphone as I can on an actual PC keyboard. And I have all kinds of special characters that I can use that you would need to copy and paste on a PC. As Yoda said, “Judge me by my size, will you? Size matters not.”
Typed on my LG Sunset.
I’m among those who say “you’ll get my full-size PC keyboard off my cold, dead hands”, but your notions of “most situations” are a lot more limited than you think.
A smartphone is a computer.
BTW: The great Seymour Papert recently died. He once noted that when every child has a computer, computers will be cheap enough for every child to have one. Visionary.
Of course “everyone” doesn’t mean every single person, it means 96.3% of the world population.
And as I said, this isn’t even really a prediction. Mobile phones are everywhere now, even in third world slums and subsistence farming villages.
Obviously you’re not going to be writing your novel on the virtual keyboard of your phone. But you could get a full sized bluetooth keyboard for your phone and write your novel as a google doc. No need to worry about storage space on your phone or backups, you have a full sized keyboard for typing, problem solved.
Of course a full sized keyboard isn’t going to fit in your pocket like your phone does. But neither does your laptop or desktop. The keyboard is just a peripheral for your computer, and your computer can be any size you want. You want a computer small enough to fit in your pocket, you can have one. You want a slightly larger one you can fit in your purse, get a tablet. You want a slightly larger one get a laptop. You want a larger one, get a desktop.
But lots of people, such as the aforementioned subsistence farmers, aren’t going to be able to afford several devices, or the infrastructure to support them. In places where electric service is spotty you absolutely need a device with a battery that consumes very little power. And you’re not writing a novel, you need weather reports and traffic reports, you need to communicate with people in the marketplace, your suppliers and customers, you need news about where the militia has set up a roadblock, and so on. This sort of information can dramatically improve your productivity even if you’re a dirt farmer whose only source of income is selling your excess agricultural output.
Please don’t leak the details of Operation Involuntary Upgrade until it’s executed, thanks.