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With worldwide market-share for smartphones constantly growing, it may seem to some that dependable old feature phones are being neglected, but a change in terminology could soon see feature phones getting smarter – on paper anyway.
Recent studies have shown that in as little as two years 29% of all world-wide mobile devices will be “smartphones”. But what does the word “smartphone” even mean anymore?
If we look back, the term really emerged when Apple launched the first iPhone, kicking off the smartphone wars and dramatically changing the mobile landscape.
Not only did Apple redefine what high end mobile devices should be from a hardware point of view, the firm also managed to ignite a battle over mobile software, and namely the mobile OS. Device manufacturers soon caught on, and alliances, pacts and treasons began to occur.
Motorola, being slowly choked to death by some 17 different platforms eventually decided to abandon its own feeble attempts at an OS and go with Google’s Android, a move which has seen the mobile company skyrocket in terms of popularity and profits.
Nokia chose to stand firmly behind Symbian, and other firms have hedged their bets, choosing various OSes to serve their needs.
But despite the smartphone flood, feature phones will still be the majority in 2012, won’t they?
Not if terminology has anything to do with it! This is because the clever marketing boffins of today have decided that “feature phones” don’t sound quite funky enough, and have therefore decided to bump all those phones with an OS, browser, apps and SDK up to “smartphone” status, while the really, really smart phones will get the new title of “superphone.” Super, eh?
This has also made life easier on handset manufacturers who can now relegate their less popular OSes to their “feature phones,” while sticking Android or another popular OS on their superphones.
Samsung, for instance, has already said that while its superphones will sport both Android and Windows Phone 7, its lower end phones will stick with the firm’s own Bada OS.
Nokia has already announced its highest end handset offerings will sport Meego, while Symbian will replace the S40 series and other lower end handsets.
Motorola, however, is sticking with Android across the board, even in its cheaper feature phone offerings like the recently announced Motorola Charm.
For those still confused by the above, not to worry, smartphones will continue to be high-end devices, simply divided into “smart” and “super” categories, with the former, more audience focused, being what we now know as “feature phones” and the latter categorizing the most advanced devices available.
Thus, feature phones will get enough of an upgrade that one could simply describe them as cheaper smartphones.
Wonder if that means we’ll be seeing an iPhone mini any time soon?
