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“Smartphone” is the wrong name

loup-vaillant.fr

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Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#51

Post by provemewrong »

gilgoomesh wrote: post #2

> "Smartphone" has the wrong connotation. It suggests your expensive brick is a phone first, and can do smart things second. If you look at where the battery goes, that's usually an accurate distinction. If your screen-on time is less than 4 hours per day, you may spend 75% of battery on the cellular antenna. Everything else takes a lower priority. Calling it a phone also efficiently distinguishes between smartphones…

There are plenty of tablets with cellular antenna though (not all of them have voice call functionality, but that's mostly just a software limitation). And with VoIP and instant messaging apps even WiFi-only device can fulfill "phone" roles.

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#54

Post by stillsut »

The average adult is required to be available by phone. Not by snapchat, not by skype, not even by text message. By. Phone.

In tech-land and teen-land you can specify platforms to each of your relationships. But in the average American's day, doctors, daycare providers, clients, etc are all going to be contacting you by phone.

Without being required to carry around the phone part, a pocket-sized tablet would have 10x less adoption than it does today. "smart phone" it still is.

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#55

Post by talles »

If I had to rename "Smartphone" I would call it "Personal Computer". My phone is way more "personal" than my desktop and laptop.

But there's absolutely nothing wrong with "Smartphone". Two are the reasons:

1 - There's history there. Most of the words aren't precisely crafted by linguists when society needs them, we simply build on what already exists. The so called smartphone came from the cellphone that came from the telephone, the name itself hints you about its origins. It's fascinating what you can learn about a word when you study its etymology.

http://etymonline.com

2 - Meaning wise I wouldn't worry so much about the connotations that the author mentions (I wouldn't worry at all). I'm with Wittgenstein in this one: the word means whatever we decide it means.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#M...

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#56

Post by api »

gjm11 wrote: post #46

I have for some time had a crackpot theory that language will actually evolve the other way. We have these things we carry around with us, called "phones"; they are actually general-purpose computing devices and making (what we still call) phone calls is a small part of their purpose. And to an increasing extent these can fulfill almost all our computing needs. So, fast-forward a couple of decades, assuming no huge t…

> there are some people who, because of their unusual needs, have a bigger more powerful one.

Unusual needs like being able to see a lot of text at once, type things longer than a paragraph, multitask, use more than one app in a work flow, and run real software?

I doubt it... unless phones develop dockable desktop capability in which case they are now dual-purpose converged devices. Right now to believe that mobile is "the future" of everything requires one to believe that most people have nothing to say beyond one-liners and selfies and that the only purpose of computing is to interact with canned services. That might be true for a subset of the market but I think it's a smaller subset than some do.

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#57

Post by dragonwriter »

api wrote: post #56
gjm11 wrote: post #46

I have for some time had a crackpot theory that language will actually evolve the other way. We have these things we carry around with us, called "phones"; they are actually general-purpose computing devices and making (what we still call) phone calls is a small part of their purpose. And to an increasing extent these can fulfill almost all our computing needs. So, fast-forward a couple of decades, assuming no huge t…

> there are some people who, because of their unusual needs, have a bigger more powerful one. Unusual needs like being able to see a lot of text at once, type things longer than a paragraph, multitask, use more than one app in a work flow, and run real software? I doubt it... unless phones develop dockable desktop capability in which case they are now dual-purpose converged devices. Right now to believe that mobile i…

> unless phones develop dockable desktop capability in which case they are now dual-purpose converged devices.

Phones already have dockable desktop capability (that is, support for desktop-style output via appropriate cables that support HDMI, and support for desktop-style input via Bluetooth keyboard/mouse.)

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#58

Post by clumsysmurf »

api wrote: post #56
gjm11 wrote: post #46

I have for some time had a crackpot theory that language will actually evolve the other way. We have these things we carry around with us, called "phones"; they are actually general-purpose computing devices and making (what we still call) phone calls is a small part of their purpose. And to an increasing extent these can fulfill almost all our computing needs. So, fast-forward a couple of decades, assuming no huge t…

> there are some people who, because of their unusual needs, have a bigger more powerful one. Unusual needs like being able to see a lot of text at once, type things longer than a paragraph, multitask, use more than one app in a work flow, and run real software? I doubt it... unless phones develop dockable desktop capability in which case they are now dual-purpose converged devices. Right now to believe that mobile i…

> I doubt it... unless phones develop dockable desktop capability in which case they are now dual-purpose converged devices.

Already here, its only going to get better.

http://bgr.com/2016/02/21/hp-elite-x3-review-pt-1-preview/

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#60

Post by peter303 »

Note Apple came to this market from a different direction than most other cellphone makers. Their first mobile computer was a revolutionary music player (innovative UI and music store). It evolved into a sophisticated media computer with color video, wireless and computer utilities in the last iTouch before the iPhone. (Apple still ships iTouches which are the iPhone device without the cellular phone in it, or a micro iPad.) So they pretty much had a full fledge mobile computer before grafting phone technology into it.
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