Since the mobile phone became commonplace in pockets and palms around the world, its capabilities have grown inexorably.
From alarm clocks to cameras there’s little the boffins who design Smartphones haven’t managed to shoehorn into …The smartphone in particular has gobbled up other gadgets with a ravenous appetite. From the simple – alarm clocks and torches – to the complicated – MP3 players and cameras – there’s little the boffins who design them haven’t managed to shoehorn into ever more slimline devices.
This growing gadget convergence isn’t set to stop. The smartphone is the most important tool in our lives, always with us and always ready to do our bidding (reception and battery allowing). But at what cost to the other previously irreplaceable gadgets we’ve come to know and love?
In the home
The first place to feel the smartphone squeeze was our homes, where simple, everyday gadgets were easily usurped.
When was the last time you bought an alarm clock? Gone are the days of ticking hands and ringing bells to wake you from slumber. Instead, it’s digital displays and personalised ringtones.
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Most of us still have a telephone landline for our home broadband connection. But many of us don’t have a phone plugged in, and if we do never answer it because only salesmen (and parents) still use them.
Then there’s the clever stuff. While not yet rendering them obsolete, the smartphone is challenging our traditional consumption of media – radios, TVs and DVD players. The launch of iPlayer and its TV catch-up contemporaries, the rise of YouTube and Vimeo, the sale of music, podcasts, films and TV shows as digital files – we can play them all on our smartphones wherever we are, at home or not.
On the go
Breaking free from the chains of home is where the smartphone really shines.
Jump on any train or bus, take a look at your fellow passengers and you’ll see a sea of headphones, most connected to smartphones. While MP3 players are still popular, they’re superfluous when even the most basic smartphone has a music player built in, along with capacious storage and the option to stream songs online from services like Spotify.
The same can be said for handheld games consoles. Big name games have been given the smartphone app treatment, often costing mere pounds to download, and are the perfect way to pass the time on public transport – or at school and work! Then there are the dedicated gaming apps, and if you’re not sure of their popularity, why not take a trip to Rovio’s Angry Birds Land and see for yourself?
In these times of shared experience and social media, the digital camera has become an essential tool we want at our fingertips. Luckily, every smartphone boasts a digicam of some sort, from simple snap and shooters to super hi-res, multi-megapixel cameras. And with the ability to instantly upload to sharing sites so friends and family can see what we’re up to, the smartphone has now eclipsed the compact camera.
The effect on the digital video camera has been even more drastic. Once big and bulky, as the technology shrunk in size the smartphone took over, offering instant HD recording, much to the trouble of tech giant Cisco, which killed off its Flip video camera range at a cost of 550 jobs.
Perhaps the most recent victim of the smartphone’s domination is the satnav. Itself the conqueror of traditional maps (remember those?), it has fallen victim to a combination of map services from the likes of Google, as well as apps that offer journey planning, turn by turn instructions and live traffic alerts.
Coming soon!
Don’t think for a minute that the smartphone has peaked – but what else can we expect to see in future phones?
The cloud is fast becoming our data storage safe of choice – impossible to lose and always up to date and accessible, it’s likely to sound the death knell for portable hard drives.
It could also see the laptop going the same way, with constant access to the data we need and easy sharing with everything from Google docs to Dropbox. Short of a decent sized keyboard there’s little the smartphone can’t do that the average laptop user needs.
What about static games consoles? OnLive is a streaming gaming service that works on your smartphone and gives you instant access to the latest games wherever you are – adios PS3 and XBOX 360!
There’s one other key gadget the smartphone can be – a remote control. But we’re not just talking the TV here, soon our smartphones will unlock our cars and front doors, open curtains, turn on ovens, programme computers and remotely record our favourite TV shows. Oh hang on, they can do that already…
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