Sunday 29 September 2013

The Ubiquitous Smart Phone

I was wondering if it is right to call a Smart Phone as really a phone.   Well, phone is just one of its functionalists but there are many other things that you do with the device.  So, I was contemplating on what to call it,  a 'Smart Device' ?   That would be a very generic name.   A 'communicator' ?  That would again be very specific to couple of its functions.  Hence, unable to coin the right name, I got convinced and still settled down with the same name.  Yes, indeed, it is a 'smart phone' because whatever be the case, phone is its major functionality.   May be, some one more smarter than me would give it a better name.  

So, what is this 'Smart Phone' and why do we call it smart?   Look at the home screen of my HTC Desire VC dual SIM smart phone running Android below


Smart Phone Home Screen
It has camera, messaging, mail, phone, impromptu news, connectivity to internet, alarm clock, twitter bar and finally a task widget.    Well, this is what a common man does in his day to day life such as these

> Send/Recieve mails
> Lookup news
> Make phone calls
> Message texts
> Tweet
> Capture images/video as appropriate
> Manage tasks

If you were to do these using your phone, then you have to enable your phone to make you smart.   How do you do that ?   So, in my opinion, the first thing to do in a smart phone is to smartly decorate your home screen.  Most smart phone users do not do this which makes the smart phone less navigable and more cumbersome to use.  They blame the phone to be more complex to use than re-configuring it. We are living in in he age of smart phones with large screens that gives you more real estate on your home screen to put many useful things.   So, my first mantra to make your smart phone smart enough is to re-configure and decorate your home screen with useful widgets.