Smart phone is a mobile phone with an open operating system.
[+] Many mobile phones are not smart enough in fact.
Smart Phone is perhaps one of the most confusing concepts today. What kind of mobile phone can be called smart? In addition to the earliest concept: "Mobile Phone plus PDA", it has lately got involved with 3G, too. What is it all about?
The primary function of the mobile phone, or course, is communication. Back in the years of black-and-white screens, many mobile phones started to provide built-in convenient functions, such as the phonebook, calendar and even game. Yet nobody would call them smart phones.
As we move into the Internet and multimedia age, the phonebook, calendar and game grow to have their color versions. The mobile Internet access allows users to download pictures, ringtones, games and other multimedia contents. Camera phones enable users to take pictures and send them to friends. Those, however, are not smart phones, either.
Following that, handset manufacturers introduce another function: PTT (Push to Talk) through a GPRS network. Pressing down a button on your handset, then you are able to talk with a group of people. In addition, there are a number of other fad applications, including audio/video recording, MP3 playing and even TV remote controlling.
With so many functions, those phones are certainly "smart enough". Yet generally, they are not called smart phones. Instead, they are referred to as "Feature Phone". They are phones with special features.
[+] Smart Phone means open operating system
Usually, manufacturers do not put all functions into one model (unless it's a top-class model with very high cost and price). Therefore, there are handsets that can be used as cameras but cannot play MP3 music, or that have the PTT function but cannot take pictures.
After all, only a small number of people need, or could afford all-in-one handsets. As I said in the above discussion, "to endow a handset with a special feature" becomes a satisfactory option for both manufacturers and consumers. Hence the so-called feature phone comes into being.
Integrating all functions into one handset will certainly increase the manufacturing cost, as each model of feature phone will involve hardware modification. If a handset could be built like the computer and have a built-in operating system to enable all functions by adding software, isn't that much more convenient?
For example, by installing special software in the handset, we could have the PTT or MP3 function instantly. That kind of architecture needs a built-in operating system similar to Windows and software vendors willing to develop programs for the operating system.
That is the smart phone, an open architecture similar to the environment used in computers. With the feature phone, handset manufacturers do everything from software to hardware, leaving no opportunity for others. However, the smart phone would allow many software vendors to develop programs for the phone.
[+] Fiercely competitive operating system market
A straightforward idea is to move the operating system of Microsoft directly to the handset. In this case, then the handset would be powered by Microsoft Office immediately, can open and edit Word and Excel files, receive or send Emails and manage contact information and calendars with Outlook, and play MP3 music and movies with Media Player.
Want to use the handset as a TV remote controller? Just install a program, as long as your handset has an infrared communication port, it can then have such function. With regard to the method of installing software, you can connect your handset with a computer or download a program directly through a browser.
Such freedom of "playing with your handset as you like" is, perhaps, something beyond the experience of traditional handset users. For PDA users, however, that is a familiar experience. As the PDA market seems to be saturating, manufacturers are taking a path toward the smart phone.
Traditional handset manufacturers, of course, will not just sit there. An operating system is emerging to compete with Palm OS and Microsoft OS from PDA manufacturers. The smart phone operating system, Symbian, bears high market expectation.
Why is the smart phone so important? Just think: in the future, everybody would carry an all-in-one device, which could be used to make phone calls, access the Internet, remotely control appliances in a digital home, play music, take pictures, and even take the place of the credit card.
It would take years to realize such a vision. However, the smart phone market is regarded as a frontier of those future applications, although for manufacturers, it is now only an instinctive reaction to "migrate to a market with a larger gross profit".
2005/01/16 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )
- Read More
Prev : VoIP (4) Dual-network Handsets Will Die of Subsidies
Next : Smart Phone (2) Who is the User?
- Today in History
Smart Phone (1) Let's Begin with the Definition - 2005/01/16
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment