Is Mobile Computing the Wave of the Future?
Jan28Written by:
2009/01/28 08:02 AM 
The old Cell Phone, or mobile phone, is no longer just a phone anymore. Gone are the days when a cell phone is just a phone. Now a days its is a computer that has a voice function. A computer you can use as a phone as well.
I remember my fist cell phone. It was a brick. It was not the first cell/mobile phone on the market, but it was my first and relatively small. It was the Nokia 110, I believe. The battery lasted a day on charge. I bought what we called then, a pregnant battery. It was a long life battery that had a bulge in it that made it look pregnant. It lasted three days on charge. All it had was a small monochrome, liquid crystal screen. Nothing more than a glorified calculator.
Today the phones not only have decreased in size but have also increased in power. From the most basic that sports the equivalent of a 486 processor to soon released mobile phones with dual-core processors. Phones now have a bunch of accessories, things like colour screens, FM radio, MP3 players, 5 mega pixel camera's, GPS, internet wireless connections. Software that will keep you not only connected to the office but allow you to work at the beach, with e-mail, web browsers, office applications, etc.
I once saw a manual of one of the latest cell phone gadgets. It was about 1.5 cm thick. It had all sorts of instructions on what the phone had, how to use the various functions and software of the phone. Then a one page write-up at the back of the manual, almost the last page, before the glossary and index, was a page entitled "How to use your phone to make a phone call".
Now days you can blog, e-mail, surf the web, up load and down load documents and pictures, video files. If you get lost, just use your GPS on your phone. The cell phone companies are giving away these new devices free with new contracts that you can't resist. Every two years you have the latest and greatest phone in your possession. Some even have more than one.
Big companies like Microsoft are pouring billions of dollars into mobile development. With improved mobile operating systems and office applications, to mind blowing tools for the developer to include the ability to develop great mobile applications right out of Visual Studio. Apple and Google have joined the fray with operating systems designed from the ground up to take advantage of the latest in phone technology.
Just look at the phenomenon of the iPhone, and the G1 phone from Google. What about the South African phenomenon of MXit. Don't forget the BlackBerry. Mobile phones are now a part of our lives, that when we do not have connectivity it feels like the world has ended.
Is it just a phase or are we seeing the end of the common PC? How often do you use your cell phone? Do you use your phone more than your PC? What applications do you use on you mobile device? What do you think about mobile computing? Leave us a comment, let us know.
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