SMART PHONES

SMART PHONES: Mobile Cell Phones Classifications: Mobile cell phones have been classified in various ways. There is a classification based on the manufacturers. We have Nokia mobile cell phones,Samsung mobile cell phones,Motorola mobile cell phones,Apple mobile cell phones,Sonny Ericsson mobile cell phones etc.We also have symbian operating system phones,window mobile operating system phones, palm operating system cell phones,android operating system cell phones,blackberry operating system cell phones etc based on the inbuilt operating systems. T-mobile cell phones,At and T mobile cell phones, Vodaphones etc.are cell phones classified according to their Network carriers.There are also classifications based on whether the screen is colored or not,whether there is a camera in the phone or not.One of the recent classifications is based on whether the mobile cell phone is SMART or not.(Smart phones). Bear in mind that these classifications are interwoven. For example,you could have a Nokia mobile cell phone using the symbian operating system, colored and smart with camera. The Wikipedia defined a smart phone as a "mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, often with PC-Like functionality ie (pc-mobile handset convergence.)" According to the encyclopedia, "there is no industrial standard definition of smart phone.While some see a smart phone as a phone that runs a complete operating system softwrare providing a standardized interface and platform for application developers, others see it as a phone with advanced features like e-mail, internet,e-book reader capabilities and/ or a built in full keyboard or external usb keyboard connector." In summary,the encyclopedia made it clear that "it is a miniature computer with phone capabilities." There were Pamtop computers before the advent of smart phones. These palmtop computers styled Personal Digital Assistants PDA were used in taking notes,holding contacts and connecting to the internet. The new series of the PDAs had color screens, web browsers, portable media players and audio capabilities.The audio capabilities enabled the integration of the cell phone into the PDA culminating in a device with cell phone and mini-computer characteristics, the Smart phone. The Smart phone can therefore be defined as a Palmtop computer that can be used to make and receive calls.while performing the basic functions of a computer such as e-mail,accessing the internet,media player to mention but a few. That the smart phone is a computer is evident from the fact that the first smart phone named SIMON was designed by IBM in 1992 and released to the public in 1993. It was sold by BellSouth.Apart from being a mobile cell phone, "Simon" had a world clock, note pad, address book,e-mail,games , calendar. and could send and receive fax, making use of touch screen technology instead of physical buttons for dialling. Added to this, the Noia communicator, the first line of Nokia smart phones with Nokia 9000 released in 1996 was built with the collaboration of Hewlett Plackard (HP) with Nokia Nokia 9210 was the first true smart phone with an operating system while the Ericsson R380 was the first phone sold as a smart phone. Nokia called 9210 a communicator.R380 was the first commercially available symbian operating system phone. It could however not run native third party applications. We are of the view that for a phone to qualify for the smart phone label it must posses some minimal features which jnclude: (1) The cell phone must be based on an operating system which enable it to run first or third party applications. (2)The cell phone must either have a built in full keyboard typical of computers or posses an extended USB connector through whiich a keyboard can be connected and (3) The cell phone must be able to handle e-mails and capable of connecting to the internet.All said, although there are no standard definition of smart phones, we have seen various definitions. That a smart phone is a mini-computer with mobile cell phone capabilities however appears to be more simplified, explicit and more direct in unravelling the missery behind the device tagged smart phone.
Godak.