How Smart do you need to be to use a Smartphone?
They’re called smartphones, but they’re neither equipped with artificial intelligence nor do you have to be very smart to use them. Rather, they’re just mobile telephones that can also be used to 
do most of the things that computers help you do. So if you’re shopping for a smartphone with the belief that you can somehow improve the way you work and do things in a smarter way, it’s time you realized that a smartphone is only as smart, or as enterprising as its owner.
There are various reasons why people buy smartphones:
- Because they’re the latest in the market
- Because they’re trendy
- Because they look good
- Because their friends have them
- Because no one else has them
- And because they genuinely want to use all the features that the phone has.
If you look at the percentage of people who fall into the last category, you’ll find that it’s much less than the number in the other categories. People buy smartphone because they’re cool or because they want to impress their friends and relatives. It’s something of a peer pressure thing now, to own the latest and trendiest phone as soon as it hits the market.
The iPhone could be blamed for setting this trend – although there were many smartphones in the market for many years before the iPhone came into existence, it was this cool gadget from Apple that redefined the way people perceived the smartphone. Earlier, it was marketed as a gadget for people who wanted easy access to their email (the BlackBerry) and for those who wanted their phones to do much more than work as a communication tool.
Today however, it is more a tool to manipulate your photos, store songs and movie clips, have video chats, browse the Internet, download music and videos, and make the occasional normal phone call. There are very few people who are fully aware of what their phone does, and fewer still who take advantage of all the features that are built into their phone. For example, how many of you who own a smartphone know that you can load software that is not just cool but also useful on your phone if it has an operating system?
For instance, do you know that you can stay connected to your friends for free through IM software that you can load on your phone? Or that your phone can become your personalized GPS through Google Maps and the Latitude application? You can even make free calls between your phone and a friend’s if you both have Fring – the call is routed through the Internet using VoIP.
The point is that very few people know what their smartphone can do and fewer who actually utilize it completely. So we come back to the question – how smart do you have to be to use a smartphone? And the answer is – you have to be smart enough to find out what it is capable of, and use all the features that you’ve paid for.
By-line:
This guest post is contributed by Barbara Williams, she writes on the topic of Computer Technician Programs . Email her at: barbara.williams07@gmail.com
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