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SMARTPHONE
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A smartphone is generally considered any handheld device that integrates personal information
management and mobile phone capabilities in the same device. Often, this includes adding phone
functions to already capable PDAs or putting "smart" capabilities, such as PDA functions, into
a mobile phone.
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.
The first smartphone was called Simon designed by IBM in 1992 and shown as a concept product
at COMDEX. It was released to the public in 1993 and sold by BellSouth. Besides a mobile phone,
it also contained a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, and games.
Customers could also use a stylus to write directly on its screen to create facsimiles and memos.
As of 2004 smartphones are an increasingly large part of the mobile phone market. In a couple years,
it is likely that most phones sold will be considered "smart", except for disposable phones.
One of the most advanced smartphones on commerce in the second half of 2005 will be the HTC
Universal [1] (distribuited by T-Mobile as MDA IV, by Vodafone Germany as VPA IV and by Orange
as 3G SPV) with characteristics like UMTS+GPRS+WLAN+Bluetooth, 640x480/65K display, 128MB RAM+SD
slot, full QWERTY keyboard, 520MHz Intel processor, Windows Mobile 2005, two integrated cameras in
a weight of only 210 g. including battery. Other advanced smartphones as in 2005 include Nokia 9500,
Sony Ericsson P910i/c/a, PalmOne Treo 650i, I-mate PDA2K and the future Samsung SCH-i730 and
Motorola RAZRBerry.
Most common operating systems are Symbian (developed by a group of renowned mobile phone
solution providers), Palm OS (developed by PalmSource), Windows CE (developed by Microsoft),
BREW (technically a platform developed by Qualcomm), and Linux.
Symbian, the current leader with over 80% market share, is used by five different smartphone
platforms. Three of the platforms are developed by Nokia (Series 60, Series 80 & Series 90),
a fourth is developed by NTT DoCoMo for the Japanese market and the final one is developed
by a subsidiary of Symbian itself (UIQ). Contrary to the information published on PalmSource's
website, Symbian OS v8.0 is largely backwardly compatible with previous versions.
Smartphones in the U.S. tend to be PDAs with phone capabilities while those in Europe and
Japan tend to be phones with PDA capabilities. Features tend to include Internet access,
e-mail access, scheduling software, built-in camera, contact management, GPS navigation
software and occasionally the ability to read business documents in a variety of formats
such as PDF and Microsoft Office. In the CTIA conference held in Atlanta, Georgia in March
2004, incorporation of television into the smartphone was among the topics discussed.
Opera's "Small-Screen Rendering" is a special way to reformat webpages to fit inside the
small screen width, hence eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling.
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