The evolution of the smartphone



The Nokia 9120 Communicator. Image from ArsTechnica.com



Ars Technica had an excellent feature story about the evolution of the smartphone, mainly in the past 10 years and I looked back in interest/bemusement/fascination/nostalgia to the models they showcased.

Many of the devices I recognized as ones I had used at some point in time - or at least used a variant of the original design. The Nokia Communicator stood out as a real break-out device at the time - imagine that you could get on the Internet from a mobile phone in 2002?! Yes, it was slow, but it was also a pioneering device for it's time.

Interestingly, I'm hearing more and more that people are accessing the Internet through their mobile devices - YouTube discussed

"revealed that YouTube now boasts over 2 billion video playbacks a day, 150 million of those being on mobile devices." (courtesy of Techcrunch.com interview with YouTube's product manager).

The time is fast approaching where many people are considering mobile phones with some sort of functionality for connecting to the Internet while mobile. Not just so-called-smarthphones such as iPhones or Android devices, but 'feature phones', the more basic models that are the bigger sellers worldwide. The new Windows 7 phones look like they are aiming for this market, with a much more stream-lined functionality for many features.

So, leading on from the evolution of smartphones to their current functions and styles (namely lead by the ground-breaking iPhone only three years ago), where do you think this is all going to lead? What functions do you think will appear? And how should it be dealt with by schools to support this sort of new technology, and even in the workplace?