Smartphones: Usage, Details and Impact - Article Example

Smartphone Smartphones Q Smartphone A smart phone is a cellular electronic gadget with the ability to perform additional functions besides the functions of the conventional cell phone. The additional functions include ability of sending and receiving e-mails and editing office documents (Himmelsbach, 2013 pp. 80). Smart phones have additional features above the normal phones such as an operating system, apps (applications), QWERTY keyboard and high-speed internet access; such as the 4G network and Wi-Fi connectivity. A smart phone, therefore, can operate concurrent applications at the same time just as a palm computer. Many smart phones have touch screens and are run by operating systems such as symbian, android, windows mobile and blackberry OS. The screen of a smart phone is generally smaller than that of a computer but larger than that of a regular mobile phone. They have random access memories, central processing units and expandable memory. Smart phones can have up to 1.2 GHz of processor, 1 GB random access memory and 64 GB processor, a feature resembling that of lap and palm computer. They are the pillars of mobile commerce and the infrastructure of social connectivity. Two main features that define smart phones are the gyroscopes and accelerometers. Gyroscopes drive navigation that needs motion such as games. Accelerometers provide twin screen visibility: landscape and portrait. Smartphone have two types of touch screen displays. These are capacitive and resistive displays. Capacitive displays respond to finger gestures such as the screen of Samsung S5. Resistive display respond to the command of a pen-like hardware referred to as a stylus. How smart phones differ from traditional classes of computers Besides being able to run software and perform computing tasks, there are stark differences between a smart phone and traditional computers. The differences arise from the user input, operating system, portability, connectivity, storage screen size, power and cost. Storage Storages of many smart phones range 125 MB to 64 GB. This is unlike the storage capacity of computers, both desktop and laptop, that have an average of 250 Giga bytes. The normal computers therefore have an advantage of performing and storing several tasks while a smart phone user has only space to store very necessary tasks, software, applications and entertainment. Connectivity Internet connections through a smart phone is fast, reliable and can be easily managed, reason being, they only need network connectivity to the nearest cell phone tower. Computers over rely on Wi-Fi network. Data entry User input in a smart phone is slower than that of a computer. Computers have keyboards that ease typing unlike the QWERTY keyboards that are smaller and unfriendly to many users. Types of smart phones Categorization of Smart phones bases on the features they can handles, design, battery life, operating system, zoom power of its camera, quality of photographs and how crisp its screen is. The main consideration in clustering smart phones takes a bias on the operating system that runs the phone. These include: Symbian smart phones The symbian smart phones have a history dating 1998 during the merger between Psion software, Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola. Symbian was born as Psion software made decision to change its name during the merger. Nokia 9210 is the first smart phone to use the Symbian OS. Its main feature then is Bluetooth. The processing of symbian smart phones uses a thread like multi task operating system. The threads have nanokernels with nanothreards (Kuniavsky 2010 pp. 48). Android smart phones The main Android smart phones are Google nexus 5, Samsung galaxy S4 and S5, HTC phones, Motorola Moto X, Sony Xperia and LG electronics. Android smart phones have an open functionality that enables computer geeks to develop applications that can enable efficient utility of the gadget. They are millions of applications that Android smart phones have an access to in the Google play store. The applications peg on functionalities that include internet access, text messages, social connectivity, camera and making calls. The android infrastructure includes Linux kernel and SQL database. Though the library of Android is programmed using C++, calls in these phones is made using a Java interface. Windows mobile smart phones The main gadgets that use windows mobile OS are Nokia Lumia 525, Nokia Lumia 1020 and Nokia Asha 210. The windows mobile has up to five hundred features. The windows mobile smart phone has a metro interface with clear visibility of its screen. Blackberry smart phones What distinct blackberry is its push technology with swift email applications. These gadgets are the reserve of business executives since its inception in 2007. The distinct feature of the blackberry is its ability to synchronize over ten emails with outlook. Blackberry desktop manager and the personal information manager enable this. Different blackberry smart phones run with different operating systems. These include OS 4.2, 4.3, 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7. While OS 4.5, 4.6, and 4.7 allow the editing of Microsoft office documents, OS 4.2 and 4.3 only allow for viewing of the same documents. Advanced Blackberry smart phones are Pearl 8220 and Blackberry Bold. Q 3 Computing power is a measure of how fast a computer can perform any given operation. It defines how long it takes computer to execute. For example if everything done by computers can break into math then computing power is speed at which processor interprets any command you effect as a series of math problems (Talebi 2008, pp.17). Computers with high computing power are those whose processors can execute commands faster while those with low computing power have processors, which are slow in execution, Measure of computing power is how many electrical pulses CPU sends out per second (Talebi 2008, p.19). Computing power differs from computer functionality and usability but these aspects are interdepending. Computer functionality unlike computer power is not measure of how fast but measures how many operations or software program computer is able to execute (Talebi 2008, pp. 22). Computer functionality is one important guideline when trying to decide on which computer to use on any given job, designer will know how many programs the computer is able to support. Functionality depend on computing power, computing power dictates how many software programs operator can install in a computer to operate effectively (Talebi 2008, p.24) . Functionality also depends on the usability; operators with high usability can allow computer archive high functionality and high usability skills allow one to operate computers with high computing power. Computer usability defers from computing power and computer functionality mainly on aspect that usability has no connection to computer system; it relates to computer users. Main considerations in defining usability include learnability, which is how easy it is for the operators to use the computer on first time of happenstance, Efficiency, which measure how quick the computer can execute (Talebi 2008, p. 27). Memorability measure of extend to which the operators can retrieve information after using the computer and lastly one aspect in usability is the rate and ease at which the computer debug. Usability can also relate to training operators get before using computers, poorly trained operator can archive low rates in usability even if given computer with high power and functionality. Question 5 Differences in available applications of smart phones Smart phones have different applications that are installed depending with their designers and use that the installed application is valuable. Although these phones have almost similar applications, they have applications that are different (Philip 2014, ). Applications that run using the Google engine by android simply crash often than those of the Apple applications using the same search engine. It is possible because Apple has the ability to control the applications that go into its store. However, these smart phones have similar applications such as the two below. One of the best application it this smart phones is the price check application. Price check application is an application that is free to the iPhone and the Android phones. The application enables the user to know the price of products by simply scanning the bar code, and then you get the price o the product instantly (Rothman, 2014). In terms of games, iPhone has the best application because of its huge lead than that of Android. However, on networking application android has the best networking platform. This is because of the perception that reviewers have on the iPhone, it is not very friendly to network with it. Ways in which owners may use their different “Smart Phones” Smartphones are changing the way business is done, its management and easy communication simply from the comfort ones house (Dan 2014). According to research done by Pew, they found that several American adults own smart phones that enable them work perfectly and expand their business empires in a cheaper way. In their research, it is evident that a new type of consumer is emerging simply called as the “smartphonatic.” These individuals can simply perform their banking services; make payments and even do shopping by simply a click of the phone. Smart phones have substantially proved a big deal in hospitals and have enabled many hospitals to redefine their healthcare provision. Hospitals that include Beth Israel are using the technology that comes along with smart phones. These small devices help the nurses and the doctors in educating them and providing safety tips in giving faster service to their clients. Question 6 Impact of smart phones on people Smart phones have enhance the social life and taken it into a new level than the life before their introduction into the market. Families, friends and colleagues are now just a text way. Their texting ability is so easy with some having QWERTY keypads while most of them are just soft touch. Individuals can also respond to these texts at their convenient time or if possible simply make a call if it is very necessary and urgent. Although networking is easy, they have an effect on personal or taking time to meet one on one with colleagues. It is also a negative possibility it social life if viewed from that angle. Another impact they have on life is the convenience that they have put on our lives. These days we do not need to leave the house to go watch a movie, take a photo or walk to the poster. They have applications that can stream songs and videos online at the click of a button. However, it leaves one wondering, how long will take one to sit in his house or her office and claim to be comfortable with these applications without leaving the office or the house. Another impact, though positive is the convenience of banking that it has made. Transfers of cash and deposits are so much easier since they are easy to transfer directly from the phone to the commercial banks or to other friends through phone money transfers. How “Smart Phones” will change in the future Technological innovations are changing fast; it is long since the use of cathode ray tubes as televisions and completely large technological equipments. Ever since we have continuously been experiencing a series of changes in technologies starting from a flat panel displays (LCD), global networks and wireless communications. All these things started with simple imaginations of individuals who could dream big and further. The likes of Dynabook and Kay who foretold of the future personal computers, we now refer as laptops. 30 years back not all these existed as they do now, however, there are expectations of many changes in smart phones. These devices will be much smaller, very portable and easier to handle. With this, you cannot help but wonder how our lives and behaviors will be transformed totally. Many individuals are giving us these visions and we have to take them since we have seen what we can do. Bibliography Dan, K 2014, ‘How Smart Phones Are Changing the Way We Bank, Drive, Have Sex and Go to the Bathroom: TIME. Viewed 1st August 2014 Read More