Smartphone = Starbucks coffee or scam?

"The purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making capacity to make six decisions just to buy a cup of coffee. Short, tall, clear, dark, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, caf, etc. So people who don't know what the hell you're doing, or who are on Earth, may, for just $2,95, get not only a cup of coffee, but a sense of self definition: absolutely. Decaf. Cappuccino. "– You've Got Mail (1998)

Find the name ' phone ' in most devices that we call smartphones as fun. I'm sure there is out there, a study that says at least we use the device as a ' phone ', i.e. to make and receive calls.

Sure, that a smartphone is now a mobile access to various services like Facebook, Twitter, games, navigation, music and sometimes a calculator, alarm etc. Almost two years ago I wrote about this: "making Apps, no Hardware!"

I think that the time has come to stop calling them ' Smart Phone ', ' Super phones ' etc. They are ' Service and Content Access Mobile devices ' (scam?) – I'm sure this isn't a catchy name, but this is what are the mobile phones of the day. Because, in their current form, are gateway to:

Access services: Twitter, Facebook, Enterprise AppsAccess content: music, Audio, Video, and content-sharing PhotosCreate

Feature of the phone is almost just a ' good to have ' and a side effect of the devices that require connectivity to provide the above services. (How else to explain big screens that are bigger than the user's face?) – But, until that name scam collects, I'll continue to call it ' phone ' – but, when taking the word, remember-you heard it here first!

Coming to the quote at the beginning of this article, I just realized that every mobile phone is unique. A person choose a phone and then adds several apps (service/content), customizations to it to make it your own. Every phone has its own distinct personality. This is becoming so important that not more hardware/brand plays a key role in a phone. It all comes down to ' I can do with this phone? ' that always translates into ' Has an App that you can do ? '

Needless to say, any owner of the platform – iOS, Android, Windows Phone etc – competes with others in terms of better app stores building and supporting an ecosystem of developers that motivates them to build better apps. A few days ago, spokesman for Nokia said that they feel that there is a gap in Windows Phone app and need to work on filling.

Just like a person has its own personality (or multiple personality disorder) while ordering Starbucks coffee, a smartphone is a reflection of the person who uses it.  A phone reveals that everyone – lover of games, photo junkie, eternal inhabitant of Facebook/Twitter etc.

A smartphone is derived basically from his factory as a vanilla (?) plain computing and communications, which gets its color and personality.

So, dress your scam! (And don't call it a phone!)