Could SmartPhones be the next big revolution?
Some researchers say this could be the case given the number of applications (or apps) being made available to users. In many cases, the apps allow users to use programs and resources once confined to the ranks of a computer but have now gone mobile.
According to USA Today, tech specialists say that $2 billion a year is spent on apps, making them a profitable arm of the new frontier. And that number could grow when Apple unleashes the iPad on the market next month.
“The sea change here is that people are gradually moving away from spending time with TV and computers to their mobile devices,” says Matt Murphy, who manages the iFund — which invests in iPhone-specific app developers — for Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “And that mobile time is increasingly less about talking and all about apps.”
He points to recent statistics prepared by Morgan Stanley tech analyst Mary Meeker showing that typical cellphone users now spend 30% of their 40-minutes-a-day average on data, and iPhone users spend 55% of their 60-minute average on non-talking phone activities.
“There will be no slowing this app economy,” Murphy says. “Apps enrich our lives in ways specific to who we are. Look for the current app snacks we have on our iPhones to turn into a meal on the iPad as the app experiences become far more immersive.”
Some users cite the convenience of hand held devices as the reason to use them. Others say it’s because of the instant connectivity.
User Dan Wright tells USA Today that he’s addicted to using his hand held to keep up with everything going on.
“It’s hard for me to tell my kids to turn off their devices and pay attention at dinner when my own phone is pinging and buzzing at me constantly,” says Wright, 49, a publishing consultant from Gallatin, Tenn. “I struggle. I’m married with three kids, and yet it’s easy to get so carried away shopping around for the next new app. I am trying hard to turn it off.”
Part of the problem is that Wright’s mobile phone now largely takes the place of his computer. Whether he’s blogging, tweeting, Skypeing or just playing, it all happens through apps.
“My mobile device doesn’t boot up, it just comes on. I love that,” he says. “I was skeptical about the iPad, but I’m changing my thinking. It could help me move almost completely off my computer.”
But as with all good things, some users could develop an over-dependence on their hand held devices.
Saffo envisions a near future in which today’s home computer feels like yesterday’s brick-size cellphone, an immobile hunk of hardware that doesn’t mesh with our always-on-the-go lives.
Central to that vision is the app-loaded mobile device, which he calls “our own personal diplomats for negotiating the physical world.” The lightning-quick embrace of apps, he says, is rooted in two simple lures: ease and price.
“A one-click purchase appeals to our need for instant gratification, and the low cost means that you can buy at will,” Saffo says.
In fact, with many apps priced the same as a song — 99 cents — people increasingly “treat buying an app much as they would music: It’s disposable and there’s no great regret if you don’t pick a winner,” says Tom Hume, managing director of Future Platforms, an app developer based in Brighton, England, that has worked on apps for clients such as Microsoft and Hasbro.
What a load of BS. Smart Phones are useful for casual uses, and that’s about it. However, when you need to do actual work, you use a computer.
No, no, the master plan is in place.
This is the first piece of the puzzle, http://bit.ly/9CEir5, and eventually all these devices will not be worn, but integrated into various parts of our bodies.
The iPhone, of course, will be located between the two gluteus maximus muscles, making its use intuitive and familiar to its users.