The Beginnning of the End for Dumbphones?
Cell phones have been around for a relatively long time. Many people I know claim they used to have bag phones, I personally do not remember anybody having a bag phone. Then a while later we had those Nokia bar phones with the horrible screens and we all thought we were cool. So how much have phones changed since a few years ago?
We have always been able to make calls, some people debate the coverage and call quality. My favorite lines go something like “With my bag phone I could make calls underwater and they sounded perfect”. Then we started taking advantage of text messaging, web, e-mail, media. That is where we are now, we have devices available that do so much more.
I have a Blackberry, Blackberry and Palm have been in the smartphone market for some time. Blackberry has been constantly evolving, albeit a little slower than some other companies. Palm has basically reinvented themselves to use their new WebOS. With my Blackberry I send/receive text messages, I can update and read my Facebook, I update my Twitter, I read news and other RSS feeds with Viigo (which is super awesome). I do so many more things it is hard to list them.
As much as I love my Blackberry, Apple’s iPhone is, in my opinion, what changed the game. Apple made a device that has much more memory that RIM devices or Palm devices had. They released a fairly simple development kit to developers. The iPhone became more about the apps than the phone. People thought “Wow I never knew I would be able to do this with a phone”. Apple is very smart and they did a great job marketing and showing us some of the cool apps, they also give the feeling that there is an application for everything you could imagine.
Windows has been making their Windows Mobile platform evolve. I am really excited for Windows Mobile 6.5 to come out. I used to have a Motorola Q, which was my first smartphone, I liked it but did not love it. I liked Windows Mobile, I love Blackberry OS. I am keeping an eye on this one to see how it goes.
The next big contributor to the smartphone realm was Google. For me Google is just an awesome company, some people know them for their search engine only, but now they have thing Chrome browser and Google Voice which are cool products. Google initially had a good relationship with HTC, but now Motorola and LG are going to start making Android devices. It is open, so I think many manufacturers will start using the Android OS and tweaking it to fit lower end and higher end devices.
Our phones have always done what they have done, they have slowly added features and we have been familiar with the layout. The main things that change are what carrier you have. A Sprint phone’s menu may look different from an ATT phone. The first time you pick up a Blackberry you are lost, although once you get the hang of it YOU LOVE IT, at least I do.
Carriers know applications (apps) are what people are falling in love with, they are trying to cater to these apps a little more now (think LG enV3). A dumbphone will not let you cater to apps, at least not in the capacity that will make them successful. I see business users using Blackberry for years to come. Some business users I think will also use iPhone. Google Android and Palm WebOS are the operating systems to watch. With their abilities they can be tweaked to fit into a consumer or business customer device.
If you have any questions you can contact us. You can also reach me on Twitter @gizmoalex or Charlie @phonestore. We like to think we are smartphone experts, but we also love using our gadgets and devices and we want people to enjoy them too. If you have any questions or any suggestions let us know.