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“Smartphone” is the wrong name

loup-vaillant.fr

111–117 of 117 posts

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I make a long comment, I like to see explanations about what warranted a downvote. So I can learn…

I didn't personally downvote you, but I'll give you my best guesses: 1) The percentage of die used for decoding is actually already quite low. Per Anandtech 2014, it was at 10% for x86 and decreasing: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8776/arm-challinging-intel-in-... Since there is a floor to the number of transistors needed for decoding, there might not be a whole lot to gain there. 2) Progress has already been made to…

Whoa, I was hopelessly out of date. Thanks.

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that respect, I miss the word 携帯. スマホ ( sumaho , ugh!) feels so uncultivated in such a pleasant language. It was a predictable outcome though. Japanese has a tendency to abbreviate common words, and the term smartphone (the unwieldy スマートフォン/sumātofon) was imported with the first generations of smartphones. The German Handy on the other hand (as ccozan mentions)… What a lovely word.

I only hear people using スマホ to differentiate them from feature phones ガラ携 (Galapagos phone, also a homonym for "junk phone"). 携帯 is still the general term for "cellphone".

You see cellphone store advertise feature phones as Galapagos phones, and I believe it was Panasonic or Sharp that even had a line of phones called Galapagos.

I'm not sure I get what word "Gara" is a homonym with, to me it seems like a fairly normal word.

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#113
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with a purpose built DSLR, you still have to frame your shot. I meant I don't need to look at the screen to make the phone ready to shoot. I believe the software can go a long way. It will never be as UX friendly as a camera, sure.

I agree that there's room for UX improvement in the software, and as a software guy myself, it's the first place I'm inclined to look at as a source of improvement. It's just that not all the problems have a software fix, in my opinion. Thank you for the double-tap tip, though. It works in Marshmallow too, apparently.

To me the issue is the lack of context and pressure. Physical interfaces tapped into deep human perception. Sub millimeter movements, skin sensitivity, change of texture, response curve. None of that is taken in account in the desktop design world. At least before, software was designed for high throughput and underpowered machines (I often find AS400 UX as ugly as efficient, and in reality nobody cares about software being pretty). Now you get Material Design. 80% eye candy. Whenever I have to use KitKat I feel so relieved because it has centered, static, squary input menus. I don't have to avoid overlapping free floating (+). Every new market causes a regression, until it learns lessons from the past. The learning phase is still going indeed.

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#114

In my opinion, it'd only be a truly smart phone if it shipped with a compiler onboard so you could build apps for it ..

DroidDevelop and AIDE are available on Android devices. As far as I know, no portable devices ship with a compiler installed, but since it's easily available in the app store, I'm not convinced that it matters.

OpenPandora, a portable device (which I consider to be an utterly arbitrary class of computing), ships with usable compilers..

Point is, I think its arbitrary that you can't use an iPhone to write apps for the iPhone.

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DroidDevelop and AIDE are available on Android devices. As far as I know, no portable devices ship with a compiler installed, but since it's easily available in the app store, I'm not convinced that it matters.

OpenPandora, a portable device (which I consider to be an utterly arbitrary class of computing), ships with usable compilers.. Point is, I think its arbitrary that you can't use an iPhone to write apps for the iPhone.

Right, OpenPandora, its predecessors, and its successors. I considered buying one for a time, but never quite convinced myself, so I've never gotten to play around with one.

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#116
post #64

Does anyone actually say "smartphone" except (vanishingly rarely) when necessary to describe the device in contradistinction to "dumbphones"? Is there a difference whether spoken or written? If so, where are you? I'm curious because all I hear in the UK is "phone" or "mobile" - both of which we always used. But I'm acutely aware that I hear or read "cell" in American sources significantly less often than, I think, I…

> Does anyone actually say "smartphone" except (vanishingly rarely) when necessary to describe the device in contradistinction to "dumbphones"? True. My beef isn't about "smart" however, it's about "phone". I believe my point stands even more acutely in this light.

Sure, it was something of a side-point, but the more relevant point (which I may have forgotten to make..) was that in the UK 'mobile' is still common.

Although actually a contraction of 'mobile phone', it doesn't have the same 'problem' going forward, since we can just decide or assume that it refers to a mobile computing device.

Possibly though things will get even more blurred than that - everything a computing device and almost all of them mobile... Time will tell!

Re: “Smartphone” is the wrong name

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only hear people using スマホ to differentiate them from feature phones ガラ携 (Galapagos phone, also a homonym for "junk phone"). 携帯 is still the general term for "cellphone".

You see cellphone store advertise feature phones as Galapagos phones, and I believe it was Panasonic or Sharp that even had a line of phones called Galapagos. I'm not sure I get what word "Gara" is a homonym with, to me it seems like a fairly normal word.

Yes, the Galapagos phone is where ガラ comes from.

I've heard people calling them ガラクタ (crap) phones before. It's obviously just slang...

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