SmartPhones are everywhere, whether it is a the latest version of the iPhone or the latest iPhone killer, bombarding us with their shiny screens and “power-features”. What do we actually use them for though? What does a phone do and why do we even use such a device? Will the future be bright for the SmartPhone or will it be just another stone in the road to the future?
“I need more minutes.”
“Call me after 7.”
“Don’t text me, I don’t get texts.”
We have all heard these comments and many more like them. These days, all those things are just bits in the giant stream of information that circles the globe and connects humanity in a way nothing else has before. All SmartPhones are internet capable and all modern mobile networks are cellular, so at the end of the day whether you are looking for movie show times or talking to you parents across the country, you are using data.
Data is cheap, and frankly should not distinguish between internet browsing, calls, text, mms or streaming media. You should be charged to access and if access is such a scarce resource, then charge per megabyte or GB (seems more fair with the proliferation of data hungry services).
I have a SmartPhone and hardly ever use the Phone feature. I browse the web, play games, watch movies, stream music, I’ve even used it as a digital cue card during a presentation. The Phone part of the SmartPhone is quickly becoming just another app. Frankly, I pay for the phone service so that I can get data with it, I could really do without for the most part.
The future cannot be stopped and business models never survive if they do not adapt to the changing market. The market is moving toward a data driven model where the devices become transient and the data becomes the permanent thing that we anchor ourselves to. More importantly, companies that want to succeed should understand this and move away from the X minutes + data charges and simply do what the ISPs are doing: Give people access at a given tier of bandwidth and only overcharge for excessive abuse. Sprit is already moving in this direction and I applaud them for it.
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