Smartphones will soon turn computing on its head
LAS VEGAS - There's almost as many people buying smartphones as there are people buying laptops, and that trend is about to turn the computing industry on its head.
"We do see that gravitational pull of the single-use device being played out in the market," said Nigel Clifford, CEO of Symbian, during the opening presentations of Smartphone Summit here at CTIA 2008. "This is not just about multiple devices, it's about knocking aside some other forms of communication."
Symbian CEO Nigel Clifford takes questions from the audience at the Smartphone Summit.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)At CTIA, smartphones are still a niche product. The Smartphone Summit was held in two generic meeting rooms deep inside the maze of twisty passages that is the Las Vegas Convention Center, while hundreds of cranes and forklifts careened around the show floor, setting up for tomorrow's main event. The math is simple: smartphones like Nokia's N95, LG's Voyager, and Apple's iPhone make up around 10 percent of the global market for mobile phones
But that's already a serious number. With the mobile phone market crossing 1 billion units in 2007, that's 115 million smartphones that were purchased worldwide last year. In the PC world, notebook shipments are gaining on desktop shipments, but on a worldwide basis still make up less than half of the 271 million PCs shipped last year.
The PC isn't going anywhere, but it's increasingly competing for attention with the smartphone. This is an old story in Europe, where teenagers searching for flashy phones and Web access have been served by carriers hawking inexpensive phones, said Pete Cunningham, a senior analyst with Canalys.
But in the U.S., people are just waking up to the possibilities presented by having the Internet in your pocket. Credit Apple and the iPhone for the surge in interest on the part of Americans, said Jonathan Goldberg, senior analyst with Deustche Bank.
The title of a slide used in Clifford's presentation was "Brands are Transitioning From the Desk to the Hand." The slide contained a who's-who list of Internet properties, including Google, Yahoo, eBay, and the usual suspects, and was making the point that the PC is not the only avenue to the Internet.
LG's trying to make sure people notice its smartphones, taking up the whole front of the Las Vegas Marriott with this ad.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)Three things in particular are driving smartphone growth and interest among regular people: the increasing amount of time they spend online on things like social-networking sites, the impatience of having to wait until they get back to their home or coffee shop to get online to check messages or update their status, and the desire to look good while doing all that, he said.
For all the hubbub over the iPhone's software development kit, it seems most people are content to spend their time in their browsers. Bill Hughes, principal analyst at In-Stat, surveyed U.S. smartphone users and found that they only downloaded 1.83 applications on average, and that many of those were games. The number of iPhone users in the survey was too small to be relevant, Hughes said, meaning that smartphone users with more open operating systems aren't really taking advantage of them.
Obviously, you're not going to find too many smartphone naysayers at an event called the Smartphone Summit sponsored by Symbian, the world's largest smartphone operating system provider. But when you consider the trend more broadly, it's hard to deny.
At some point, we'll be able to retire the term smartphone, Goldberg said, in a development that will delight the editorial copy desk at News.com. Intel and ARM are pushing on each other to develop more and more powerful chips for mobile devices. Apple and Google are raising the bar for operating systems in terms of performance, user interface, and openness. And carriers are starting to recognize that in the future, they might be no different than a wireless ISP.
That means all our phones will be smart. In other parts of the world, where PC adoption is still just getting underway, a lot of people might just skip over the PC and start using a powerful phone that costs around $200 to $300, gets them online at broadband speeds, lasts all day, and fits in their pocket.
That's a smart idea.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom.
Most PC users will be glad to see the web bullies get it in the neck, when all the precious software people have been fighting over gets reduced to PROM and shrunk into a cell top.
It couldn't have happened to a more trusting bunch, don't you know. Too bad!
The Answer: None
I've read too many moronic articles about how the smartphone is the end all of death and taxes. Will a small device end the use of desktops and laptops? Not with this version of smartphones or the next. Unless there's a radical change of input and display concepts, the smartphone will never displace current desktops/laptops form factors.
Do you still own a radio? You've probably got a PC, a TV, a telephone, a cell phone, a CD player, a DVD player, and so on, but I bet you have a small radio somewhere in your home.
That's what we're talking about here, not displacement. You still own a radio, DVD player, and a PC, but they are getting less and less interesting. They are established products and industries, and they're not going to change all that much.
But your mobile phone is going to change a lot over the next ten years.
The Answer: None"
WRONG! The Answer is suprisingly a lot. Maybe not in the US, but in Europe and Asia cell phone ownership is much more prominent than PC ownership. And because of that, their phones are not just basic units.
How many Internet Cafe's are running in the US? Mostly in libraries, I'd say. But they are a big deal in other countries. PC ownership in every home with Internet access is just now coming of age across the globe. It is not all that difficult to understand.... Technology levels are skipped. When the economies of countries grow, they make the best use of the current technologies. They do not go back and buy the old tech they couldn't afford or get before. We saw it in Japan after WWII in the Steel industry. US Steel factories were outdated, but it was very difficult to justify spending the dollars to replace or upgrade them. Japan rebuilt after the war, because they had no choice, and build modern plants. This gave them a big leg up against US Steel companies, and basically put them out of business. And there are other examples....
One of the reasons that the iPhone is such a big hit is that it was released first in the US. Smart phone users in Europe and Asia include the young, non-business demographic. RIM and Windows targeted the business market in the US, whereas the iPhone's cool factor markets to individuals better. This could be seen as a Tech jump too. And this is what Symbian's CEO is refering to when he makes reference to the different markets, and the changes to make them similar in the near future.
Go play out of your sandbox once in a while before you start bad mouthing a world you don't understand. Your view is so myopic it is a wonder you don't bump into walls...
Everything manufactured could be smart and connect.
Phones will be the device, but services and manufactured items will also be smart.
We will have smart stores, smart toys, smart packaging, smart shelves, all paid for by smart cards and smart phones.
Imagine the surface of packaging displaying a web animated graphic wirelessly by the manufacturer, oOr pointing your phone at the product and it loading into your phone for payment.
Human beings will not shrink because their phone is small.
As a wristwatch or wallet perhaps? Well, those are the two things we can always bear to carry with us at all times everyday.
Imagine a rolled up OLED I can un-scroll at times when I want a bigger screen. The touch screen pen or my sign pen that double as my rolled up OLED perhaps?
Imagine hooking up my "wristwatch" to any (HD) LCD screen or projector to show off my media collection.
Imagine using my "wallet" to pay for my purchases, send a text/e-mail message and make calls.
Imagine... Nokia Morph-ish? Yeah...
Nice - very educated.
There is no doubt true that Smartphone computing will overtake other larger form factor devices. Equally important is to understand how this will happen? The key lies in what Nigel Clifford, CEO of Symbian said ?This is not just about multiple devices, it's about knocking aside some other forms of communication." In all likelihood, mobile WiMAX will play an equally important role in connecting these devices and keep them meshed in with the global internet. In effect, what we are saying is that the global internet will assume wireless and mobile dimensions. With the use of IPv6, the mobile devices will be individually addressable and will serve as mobile servers or computing hubs.
http://www.wimax-home.com
- more connected the better
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by asperger514
April 5, 2008 7:44 AM PDT
- i'd really like to see a cell/internet appliance with an rfid scanner, so my phone could monitor it's immediate proximity, and advise/remind me of courses of action.
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(15 Comments)i.e. "you need toothpaste, and your brand is on sale on the counter to your left."