The phone as PC
Smartphones — those that combine cellular telephony with PC-like features — are becoming as powerful and feature-rich as desktop computers. In developing markets they could soon become the principal way people communicate online.
In many African markets, people are connecting to the Internet and the Web for the first time using smartphones like the BlackBerry. In countries like Nigeria, says Deon Liebenberg, regional director for BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, the demand for smartphones is growing exponentially. This despite users often having to pay cash up-front for them as post paid cellular services are nonexistent.
Whereas people in developed markets are more likely to use a laptop or desktop PC to surf the Web and check e-mail, smartphones are becoming the principal way many people in Africa communicate online, Liebenberg says. And with fast 3G networks being deployed in leading markets across the continent, demand is soaring.
It’s hardly surprising: in some respects, the smartphone is the new PC.
When I upgrade my cellular handset — usually once every 18-24 months but sometimes more frequently — I tend to toss the old one into a sock drawer and forget about it. Last weekend I looked at all those old phones and marvelled at how far we’ve come in a comparatively short space of time.
In my “mini museum” I found a handset I used until not so long ago, the Nokia E61 smartphone. Despite being only 24 months old, the E61 already looks like a relic from a bygone era. When I switched it on again, after months of using the latest smartphones – the BlackBerry Bold, the Apple iPhone 3G and Nokia’s E71 — the E61 felt unresponsive and looked more like a doorstop than a phone. Yet at the time the E61 was released — remember, this was only two years ago – I wrote a review in this magazine raving about it and saying it was the best thing since sliced bread (or words to that effect).
The pace of development and innovation in cellular handsets is simply phenomenal. The latest smartphones are as powerful as the desktop PCs of just a few years ago, and are capable of doing everything from connecting seamlessly with corporate information systems to providing you with turn-by-turn voice navigation using integrated GPS technology.
Smartphones are becoming more like PCs in other respects, too: their screens are getting bigger and they’re able to store ever-growing volumes of information, including music and movies.
Annoyingly, they’re also becoming as fickle as PCs. Some smartphones take longer to boot than Windows PCs and some of the operating systems and applications they run are also notoriously unstable — I’m specifically looking at you, Windows Mobile!
The iPhone 3G is the most computer-like handset I’ve used, ostensibly because of Apple’s iTunes App Store, which makes downloading and installing applications a cinch. It is as easy to install new apps to the iPhone as it is to install new programs in Windows.
In fact, the App Store is the real killer feature of the iPhone. I’ve downloaded at least five apps for the device. If you have an iPhone, do check out the Bloomberg, Midomi, eReader, NetNewsWire and Quordy applications. They are all excellent. I am particularly enamoured of the Bloomberg tool, which provides the latest business and technology news, stock market and commodities data, as well as currency information from around the world. It even includes data from the JSE.
But I digress. Smartphones, whose prices are constantly falling as the technology they use becomes commoditised, are set to bring millions of Africans into the information age, allowing them to participate more fully in the world economy.
First published as the column Technology & You in the Financial Mail of October 10 2008
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