Smart Phone

A SmartPhone is a MobilePhone that has PersonalDigitalAssistant (PDA) type capabilities. Typically, it will have an operating system such as SymbianOs, AndroidOs?, AppleIos? or WindowsMobile. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Phone, which classifies PDA with phone functions to be SmartPhone as well.

As of January 2014, the top two contenders in the smartphone market are Apple's iPhone 5S, and Samsung's Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note III.

As the wikipedia entry says, "The key feature of a smartphone is that one can install additional applications to the device. The applications can be developed by the manufacturer of the handheld device, by the operator or by any other third-party software developer."

Most people would not regard a phone with PDA functions but which did not allow additional applications to be installed as a "smartphone". Good point I missed. I will need to remember to check out whether the supplier have put in "unwanted restrictions".
{Even my "dumb phone" from the early 2000's eventually had the ability to download or "activate" services, AKA "apps", including a (tiny) web browser. It had a TuringComplete computer inside that could in theory do anything a Cray could, but only if the service provider allowed such, which depended on the market-place forces and corporate decisions, not the technology of the device itself. I consider a "smartphone" a phone that has a real or virtual letter-containing keyboard or equivalent text entry mechanism to enter text fairly easily.)

Functionalities expected from an average 2013 smartphone include:

Obviously, the ability to make phone calls over the PSTN. (This is the distinction between Apple's iPad Mini and Samsung's Galaxy Note II -- the iPad is considered a tablet because it can't make PSTN phone calls, whereas the Galaxy Note II is considered a plus size smartphone because it can make them. However... the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet can make PSTN phone calls too...).
A rather sophisticated operating system like AppleIos?, AndroidOs? or Blackberry OS.
An app store where users can download apps -- small programs specially designed for a smartphone that follow a set of design rules, free or for a cost, which must be submitted for approval to the app store's maintainers. The two leading app stores are Apple's iTunes App Store and Google Play for AndroidOs? apps.
Internet access through 3G CDMA2000 (USA) or UMTS/HSDPA (rest of the world). (Google at first required this in order to license their OS to third parties -- until Samsung wielded its negotiating power as Google's biggest client to get them to repeal this requirement so they could work on the Galaxy Player, which is basically an Android-powered IpodTouch?).
A GPS receiver. Used by geographical apps like Google Maps, Foursquare or Locus.
A wifi receiver so you won't burn your mobile data traffic when in a stationary location.
Media player functionality -- video, pictures and music.
The ability to run games like Angry Birds. (No seriously, some people buy a smartphone literally to play Angry Birds)
A camera. A LED flash is increasingly common. (People used to poke fun at smartphones for not having a flashlight, unlike $20 dollar convenience store phones that usually have it. The manufacturers have caught up on that, and now a Samsung Galaxy S3's flashlight is twice as bright as a cheap Nokia's!)
Front face made of reinforced Corning Gorilla Glass.
Unless it's an iPhone, an SD card reader.

Luxury features found on top-end smartphones as of 2013 include:

4G HSDPA+ or LTE connectivity.
Plus size. After going through a miniaturization phase from 2000 to 2005, phones have been getting bigger and bigger now that manufacturers have caught up on how people seem to like big screens: the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4 are literally the height of a 1998 Nokia 5120 (though they're like one single centimeter thick), and the Galaxy Note II is 15 centimeters tall -- its predecessor, the Galaxy Note, was criticized for being too wide to comfortably hold with one single hand!
Super high resolution display. The Galaxy S3 has a 720P high definition screen, and the Galaxy Note II has a 1080P display -- literally an entire TV compressed into a handheld device.
Multitasking. The Galaxy Note II has some rudimentary windowing functions.
Front camera. Usually used to place video calls, but some devices have found some pretty nifty uses -- the Galaxy S3 has a feature that takes a picture with the front camera right before the display sleep timer expires, and if it detects a face, it will keep it active; the Galaxy S4 will have eye-controlled operation.
Multiple processing cores. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has a quad core CPU. The Motorola RAZR i is literally a PC inside with an Intel Atom CPU. The Galaxy S4 will have one slower and one faster CPU, both of them quad core, swapped on demand through firmware, in order to combine fast processing with low energy consumption.
High resolution camera with more than 13 megapixels.
GPS-GLONASS receiver. With only American satellites, a phone's GPS will usually lock in as long as 15 seconds (with previous tracking data) or an entire minute (freshly started with tracking data blank). Add Russian satellites and these times are reduced to between a single second (with tracking data) and 15 seconds (without it).
Near field communication. Used on credit card terminals, public transit ticket stations, RFID-based door locks, and to share files. Basically, you put your credit card's PIN on your phone and you lean it against an NFC terminal, or you install a rail pass app on your phone, buy a rail pass and use your phone to unlock a station's turnstile, or you install an access control app and use your phone to unlock a door. Android Beam is a function that automates the establishment of a Bluetooth connection (or in the case of Samsung's mod S Beam, wifi on ad hoc mode) so that you don't have to fiddle with device names, pairing and all that stuff -- you just touch phones, and ItJustWorks.
HDMI output. Apple and Samsung have special adapters for that. Sony and Motorola have included one.
Graphical processing unit to deliver game graphics that can rival a previous generation console's.
Lots of internal storage. The iPhone 5 has up to 64 GB, the Samsung Galaxy S3 will have it too.

JuneZeroFive news is that GoogleSearch has been adjusted with a special index for the mobile web users, for XHTML enabled sites designed for small screens. See http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=1826

Technology is XML. Question is whether it can be one more feather to XmlExamplesOfGoodUsage.

SmartPhone examples that will not break the bank

2005 examples

PalmOs based Treo 650. Does not work well with laptop needing wireless modem. Review at http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/Palm_Treo_650__Cingular__GSM_GPRS_/4514-6452_16-31138486.html?tag=btm

"HTC Universal" is probably only a gimmick of the addiction merchants at MS PDC Sep05. At U$150 it has 640x480 VGA screen, all kinds of connectivity, (e.g. both WiFi and ThirdGeneration), latest version of WindowsMobile and has 3G / UMTS based video (see http://msmobiles.com/news.php/4189.html). Some earlier reports erroneous said this "SIM-free" phone cannot do 3G.

Later, the above concern is probably confirmed. Sprint is selling their unit (PPC6700) at suggested price of U$630

Even if the price of SmartPhone does drop, using the ThirdGeneration (and/or WiFi) will break the bank for the average consumer. I would rather spend the extra $60 or so per month entry price on petro to go places.

As of October 2006 T-Mobile has released the DASH Smartphone to compete with the Motorola Q, both of which are very compact. The DASH is discounted down to $149.00 with the 2yr plan and unlimited data is provided with a phone plan for $30mo. This could tip the scales for the spread of the smartphone for the average consumer.

Now waiting for a "Solar energy concentrator" for PowerUsage needs :)

That would be a solar battery pack like the ones they sell at Deal Extreme: http://dx.com/p/solar-powered-2600mah-rechargeable-battery-pack-with-cellphone-adapters-30047

2012 examples

Samsung Galaxy Ace (GT-S5830). Best Buy sells it in the States for about $280 dollars, Fnac sells it in France for 220 €, and Telcel sells it in Mexico for about $3500 pesos (consumer electronics in Mexico are subject to insane customs taxes). The stock ROM (the Samsung-official stock OS) is slow as molasses and it has little internal storage space, but if you reflash the stock ROM with CyanogenMod? and create a second partition on your SD card it becomes much faster and very, very powerful indeed, and it has everything you'd expect from a smartphone: Bluetooth, GPS, wi-fi, UMTS/CDMA2000 and HSDPA 3G, high resolution camera with flash and support for SD cards up to 32 GB.

2013 examples

Samsung Galaxy Y. I've seen it at Telcel retailers in Mexico for $1700 pesos, or $130 dollars. Removing the huge custom taxes that apply to Mexican consumer electronics, I believe it would cost as little as $100 dollars in the US. It's probably not useful for anything more than WhatsApp, Twitter, Opera Mini, Google Maps and Facebook (through Friendcaster because the official app would slow it to a grinding halt), but it's an Android smartphone, it has 3G, wifi, GPS and Google Play and that's what counts.

2014 examples

I've seen the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini selling for as little as $200 US dollars as of July 2014. Multi-core smartphones are the norm today, and the Galaxy S3 Mini is an affordable phone with regular software updates, good modability and decent features. The Galaxy S3 is out of sale now but it usually fetches about $300-400 dollars and back in its day it was Samsung's much vaunted top-of-the-line iPhone killer -- meaning that its build quality is great and has great software support.

App suggestions -- Android

Waze: a social GPS that aggregates their users' road speed, so that when you request a route their systems combine your distance to destination with their speed statistics to give you surprisingly accurate ETAs in the order of ~5 minutes of error at most and when traveling to the opposite side of a city of 4 million people. It also lets its users broadcast alerts about accidents, road hazards, speedtraps, traffic cops and heavy traffic, so that you're prepared for any unpleasant surprises.
Astrid Tasks: great for making checklists so that you won't forget anything before a trip.
Evernote: a notebook that lets you save multimedia content and has tons of plugins, great for keeping your notes organized. Since your stuff is mirrored in their cloud, you can log in to Evernote from your computer and work on the same set of documents.
RealCalc?: a basic scientific calculator.
SportsTimerLite?: a pretty feature-rich chronometer.
Kitchen Timer: a basic, straightforward timer.
X-plore: a powerful file manager capable of reading ZIP archives in a way similar to Windows Explorer's Compressed Folders.
Storage Analyzer: a tool that presents you a card storage usage tree, sort of like using "du -d 1 /mnt/sdcard".
Ringtone Maker: to customize your ringtones.
QuickPic?: a very light picture gallery, much faster than Android's vanilla gallery.
Opera Mini: the famous mobile web browser, it's extremely fast and it has server-side data compression that can really, really save you a huge dime on data plan usage.
Gleeo Time Tracker: a timetable tool great for keeping track of your time usage in your portable device.
androidVNC: a remote desktop tool.
My Data Manager: a program that measures your bandwidth usage and helps you keep a sustainable phone bill.
Titanium Backup: to backup your apps and your system data. Requires a rooted phone or a customized OS.
920 Text Editor.
DropBear? SSH Server for Android: to use your phone's command line interface without having to rely on a cumbersome mini-keyboard or soft keyboard; instead, you connect your computer and phone to the same wi-fi access point, start DropBear? on the phone, and log in from your computer with an SSH client. Requires a rooted phone or a customized OS.
FTPdroid: An FTP server, based on PureFTPd. Requires a rooted phone. Initially conceived so you can wirelessly access your files without Bluetooth. However, some phones do not have an USB mass storage mode, instead relying on Microsoft Media Transfer Protocol to move files, but some of them (such as Samsung's models) have a built-in USB tethering mode which usually works fine on all PC OSes (if it works on ArchLinux I guess it works on pretty much everything). Therefore, if you have Linux, you don't need to fumble around with MTP drivers; instead, you set up FTPdroid, enable USB tethering, and point your FTP client to the default gateway your phone sends to your computer.

PDAs falling behind SmartPhones in sales?

Early 2005 reports show PDA uptaking is slowing down and vendors are pulling out. If true, is it possibly due to the more pervasive nature of the slower speed ThirdGeneration network? Are people getting tired of having to sync their PDA with PCs for email (those without WiFi)?

This could be supported by info such as Sony getting out of the PDA market

But a mid 2005 GartnerInc survey (that includes units with WiFi capabilities), showed over 1/3 rise in annual sales. See http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7215702513.html

lower prices contributed to the rise, according to other articles
another report pointed out Gartner survey includes SmartPhone as a PDA

I was discussing Smartphone vs PersonalDigitalAssistant with a colleague yesterday. And we now think Smartphone has a natural advantage. Reason being anyone wanting to get a PDA will need to have a separate mobile phone (PDA HandHeld form factor not designed to be palm sized), while the reverse need is not as urgent. -- dl Aug05

NetworkCarriers are in no hurry to lower prices and improve services, so SmartPhone users are in essence getting a crippled PocketPc, as bandwith through non WiFi mechanisms remain expensive. I hope I will remember a TabletPc offer more bang for the buck the next time I get tempted by these little toys. Comment re-read in 2013 now that a TabletPc is basically a plus-sized smartphone inside without GSM circuitry -- hell, the Samsung Galaxy Note II is officially called a "phablet", a phone-tablet hybrid.

Quest for the KillerApplication

See some ideas in Feb05 (RealDatesPlease) blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/archive/2005/02/14/372379.aspx

Would the inclusion of XML based ScalableVectorGraphics functionality open up new grounds? See http://svg.org/special/svg_phones for a list of these units

Push Email

In Australia, the NetworkCarriers favor RIM (Research In Motion) BlackBerry product, even though IT managers tend to be more comfortable with WindowsMobile. See http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Can_Windows_Mobile_squash_BlackBerry_/0,2000061791,39206968,00.htm

BlackBerry Messenger

Back in 2005-2010, Research in Motion made a killing by signing up everyone who purchased a Blackberry smartphone to their own instant messaging platform Blackberry Messenger. In places where SMS delivery was unreliable, BBM made a killing by being actually reliable and allowing people to text each other over wi-fi.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is a smartphone-oriented instant messaging service marketed as a replacement for SMS messages, which also features quick and easy media sharing, tons of emoticons, and group chats; kinda like a non-vendor exclusive Blackberry Messenger. In countries where SMS delivery is unreliable, some people actually get a smartphone exclusively for using WhatsApp.

Angry Birds

With millions of downloads, this little game about flinging explosive birds against pig fortresses has actually become one reason why people nowadays purchase a smartphone.

Now even on your pc: http://www.freegamer.info/angrybirds/''

Camera and social networks

The ability to take pictures with a device you always carry with yourself and instantly upload them to your Facebook by just tapping "Share", "Facebook" and "Post" is yet another reason why people purchase a phone.

As a fashion statement

With all the bells and whistles that come with an iPhone, a lot of people who don't even use a smartphone to their fullest have come to purchase them because they look pretty or just to show off how rich and technologically current they are. Also, a lot of people purchase an iPhone because they are SteveJobs fans, and as of 2012 a lot of people purchase a Samsung Galaxy S3 because they are SteveJobs haters.

SmartPhone with Dumb InformationSecurity

A mid Feb05 successful hack of Paris Hilton (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Hilton), where pictures and phone books were released to the public, may suggest lots of way to go for WirelessSecurity yet. How did the T-mobile break-in result in stuff stored in her phone getting retrieved? Also, there were reports of a successful hack on her BlackBerry PDA in a prior incident as well. If true, again a worry from a security perspective.

Possibly she leaked the information herself as a publicity measure?

CW reported that the cell phone data was actually stored in the server that got broken into. It relayed a more serious exposure where secret US government documents were compromised because T-mobile server was hacked. See http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2005/0,4814,100032,00.html

MicrosoftCorporation ventures

WindowsMobile 5 - May 05

WindowsMobile for SmartPhone is still different than that for PocketPc

Peabody - 2005 "loss leader"?

See MicrosoftPeabody

Stinger - Earlier MS venture that fizzled

A lawsuit reported at http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-980463.html revealed some history of the failed venture. An earlier article in 2000 reported B Gates resentment at being excluded from the SymbianOs consortium.

One reason for Symbian's existence is that it isn't Microsoft, so there was no real chance of MS being allowed in to play

MS side of the story was that Stinger was realized in a product called SmartPhone 2002 (in 2001 MS sources said WindowsCe 3.0 was to be the OS).

3G and video telephony

Can anyone say if video telephony has taken off in the states? And if so is it based on the same standards as we have in Europe, i.e. ThirdGeneration?

Response from DM moved to ThirdGeneration Doug on ThirdGeneration section weeks later.

Well, as of 2013, today's high-end phones have a front camera made specifically for video calls...

From Above

WindowsMobile for SmartPhone is still different than that for PocketPc

ItDepends
- If you are not a developer, or a vendor having a product to sell to both platforms, you may actually like having this difference. As a user I am expecting the upcoming WinCe 6 (where it is said the two implementations merge) as a move backwards because the new OS is going to be less efficient in exploiting the strengths of the SmartPhone or PocketPc hardware.
- Having said the above, in four years time I would have lauded the foresight taken to merge the OS capabilities taken in WinCe 6, because by then the SmartPhone and PocketPc hardware merge would be complete and simple OS allow lower enduser application development costs.

A history of SmartPhone with pictures is available at http://www.smartphonehistory.com/. I am interested in a count of the number of not so smart users that have purchased them over the years. Makes me happier when I finally join their rank.

The above link only references Windows-based smart phones, nb