S60 Open to new features

Er.... what's wrong with 'smartphone'? i.e. what Symbian and the rest of the world has been calling them for the last 3 years?

8-)

Steve

I’ve loaded up all my notes that I’ve taken thru out the school year on my E61, no longer have a need for my laptop as this thing does almost everything. I still prefer my laptop for composing documents, watching movies, and torrenting, but hey maybe in a decade I won’t need to buy a computer anymore.

Bring back the PSION Revo! To this day I regret selling that bad boy on eBay.

Posted by: Stefan Constantinescu | November 29, 2006 01:09 AM

No, I caught the point, I just disagree. Yes, I do use a ton of other stuff on my phone, but most people don't. Not yet at least. The trend might be increasing, but that's not that same as saying that most people use the other functions of their phone more than they make voice calls. It would be the same as saying that most people use Firefox because the market share is increasing. Simply not true.

I hate talking on my mobile; I use landlines as much as I can. But I use my 'smartphones' for a lot of different non traditional (voice) stuff.

For new names;
Personal Terminal: PT
Personal Information & entertainment Terminal: PIeT

Boom

Mike, I agree with you in that.

Just to clarify, I don't want to rename the thing that 2 billion earthlings use (for making calls and SMS).

I just want to figure out a good name for the thing that the first 50 million people are using (for lots of stuff).

Steve: of the current contenders, I still like the term "smartphone" the most. It has just been a little over-used and mis-used for wrong purposes.

It's quite funny to think afterwards why some technical inventions are called as they are called. I just read the book "iWoz", and learned that:
- computer was named as computer because it was something that computed
- monitor was named as monitor because it was something that monitored what was happening inside the computer
- ...

It might happen that we'll end up calling our mobile devices just as "phones", because they were devices which were once upon a time used mostly for phoning.

smartphone still prevails as the most common name used.. however I dont think you can associate a E61 with a name that is widely associated to a TREO ! .. podcasts, wifi, voip and more..
how about something like NexGen Phone?

smartphone still prevails as the most common name used.. however I dont think you can associate a E61 with a name that is widely associated to a TREO ! .. podcasts, wifi, voip and more..
how about something like NexGen Phone?

Cell phone is pretty much an American phrase anyway, a lot of the English speaking world calls it a mobile phone, or just a mobile.

If you're after an alternative name, I like the German term, "handy".

Another vote for "smartphone" here, but, now I mean no disrespect for the excellent work that you and all your collegues do, I HATE the term "multimedia computer" for the N-series. It's too cumbersome to roll of the tongue in conversation and it is too generic to uniquely describe what the N-series devices actually do! ANY desktop or laptop made in the last 15 years or more could be called a multimedia computer. "Smartphone" succeeds in both areas: describes succinctly what the S60 devices offer over other phones or computers and is easy to say.

Posted by: dthree | November 29, 2006 08:15 PM

Ooh, sorry to be redundant but I see you addressed "multimedia computer" after the pool. Didn't see that at first.

I think it would be fun for us in the US to use the term "mobile" with a long "i" (mo-bile) like I hear on british TV shows.

Posted by: dthree | November 29, 2006 08:19 PM

The best term is POCKET PC. Unfortunately its already owned by Microsoft for years. ;-)

How about Smarty?

I kinda like the term "mobile". It's simple and ambiguous enough to include any number of concepts (e.g., smartphone, cellphone, etc.). I believe the term is already in popular use in Europe and at least in Montreal, Canada.

I have been using other functions of my mobile more and more as I went from one model to the next starting with my first "smartphone" the Nokia 6620 a few years ago. I've since gone through at least 6 other models culminating to the E62, which I use more frequently to check e-mail lately than Outlook on my laptop.

I am not a fan of the new Nokia term "multimedia computer" although it seems accurate enough a description I don't believe it will catch -- being too long for one.

Personally I like "smartphone" best too. It's to the point, already widely used and rolls off the tongue quite nicely too.

Unfortunately I think that, although most peope have some kind of idea of what a smartphone is, there is no clear definition. Personally, I consider devices with an open OS that supports user-installable, native apps as smartphones and anything else is a phone / mobile / handy / handpone (that's what Koreans call it btw) / etc. Therefore I'd class most Symbian OS, Windows Mobile and Palm OS phones as smartphones.

I don't consider Blackberries as smartphones since they only let you install Java apps (i.e. not natively compiled for the OS). I don't consider most Linux-based phones as smartphones either - it's an open OS, but the devices are locked down so you can't install anything other than Java apps (if that). I recon there will be one or more Linux-based smartphone platforms eventually, but I think it'll be a while before I can apt-get something on my phone :P

To be fair though, both of the above are a bit of a grey area. Arguably, Japanese Symbian OS phones are too since AFAIK they too are locked down so you can't install apps (other than sort-of-Java games).

As you can see, it is getting increasingly hard to draw the line where normal phones end and smartphones begin. However adding more terminology will just confuse things even further.

Who knows, perhaps all phones will eventually become "smart" and we'll just end up calling everything a phone / mobile / handy / handpone...

Indeed. Which is basically what I was saying six months ago on AllAboutSymbian - http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/Looking_beyond_2006-the_smartphone_is_dead_long_live_the_phone.php

8-)

Steve

The use of cell phones has reallly become controversial and sometimes even hampering personal communications. By the way I don't cary mobile phones. I think there was a recent study that said it may have negative effect on brain after usage of 10-20 years. I am not sure, but the reason we don't hear about these things very much is because the cell phones have not been around that long. But there is a study which says that CELL PHONE USE IS ASSOCIATED WITH DECLINE IN FERTILITY. It appears in today's HULIQ at http://www.huliq.com/338/cell-phone-use-associated-with-decline-in-fertility and is from American Society for Reproductive Medicine

I think I use more of the other functions more than I make or receive calls!! OMG what does this mean???? Are we now in possession of multimedia computers that have phone capabilities?