Many have tried to describe smartphones as phones with PDA-like functionality. Now, while it is true that smartphones offer PDA-like functionality, the converse is not true: not all phones with PDA-like functionality are smartphones. Regular or basic phones may also come with a set of features, such as a task manager, calendar, alarm, notes etc., but this doesn't make them all smartphones.
Similarly, smartphones have also been associated with touch-screen phones. This is because a lot of Windows Mobile phones like the i-mate and O2 offerings had/have touch-screens. But not all touch-screen phones are smartphones, and not all smartphones are touch-screen capable.
In the simplest manner, a smartphone is a phone that let's you install applications on it to extend the functionality of the phone.
Traditionally, this doesn't include phones that let you install Java MIDP or BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) applications, as those midlets are often sandboxed, i.e. confined to their own memory space with not much interaction with other system components or applications. However, this distinction has also diminished sufficiently as Java MIDP applications have become more powerful, gaining access to phone features such as Internet connectivity and the camera. But even then, technically, regular phones with Java MIDP support are not smartphones.
Smartphones also allow multitasking, for eg. letting the web browser load a page in the background while you compose an SMS or an email. New multimedia phones have added this feature to the music player application, which can be pushed to the background while playing music to let you access other phone features, but this is limited to just that application. Regular phones may also offer a rudimentary form of multitasking where the application stays active in the background during an incoming phone call.Smartphones run an operating system. Normal phones all use their own simpler, proprietary user interfaces. Nokia uses Series 40 (used in phones like the 6610 and 6270), Motorola uses the ageing P2K UI and others like Sony Ericsson and Samsung also have their own interfaces that are either the same or similar across their range of phones. Smartphones use more powerful operating systems such as Nokia's Series 60 UI based on the Symbian OS platform, used in devices such as the 6600, 6630, Nseries and Eseries phones. Sony Ericsson uses Symbian OS UIQ, used in the P and M series phones and also the new W950i Walkman. i-mate, O2, HP, HTC/Qtek/Dopod etc. all use Windows Mobile.
Palm and BlackBerry devices have their own proprietory operating systems similar to non-smartphones, namely Palm OS and BlackBerry OS, but these are both open systems that third-party developers can create applications for. In contrast, you cannot create low-level, natively executable applications for non-smartphones such as the 6610, RAZR V3i, K750i or the X820.Apple's recently announced iPhone runs OS X and has almost all the features of a smartphone, but it isn't a true smartphone because third-party developers cannot create applications for it. The iPhone will only be capable of installing and running applications released by Apple, making it the iPhone version of OS X more of a proprietary UI than an open operating system. As Engadget said it, the iPhone is not a smartphone.
Some phones also run Linux-based mobile operating systems, but not all devices across brands, running Linux-based UIs are compatible with each other. You can't get one application that works with more than one phone, for eg. the Motorola MING, Samsung Qtopia and Yulong Coolpad 858. This is because all thse manufacturers are incorporating their own, customised versions of Linux into their phones, without sticking to any standards, doing away with the openness of Linux and reducing the mobile efforts to mostly proprietary interfaces. The solution might lie in OpenMoko, an open Linux-based platform for mobile phones that's not restricted to a certain brand or company. Xanadux is also interesting; it's a project that's trying to port Linux on to Windows Mobile mobile handsets.Motorola is also phasing out its P2K UI in favor of the new Linux-based UI which will be incorporated in all their phones from now on. Again, this won't make all Motorola phones smartphones, because even though the code is based on Linux, the features of the interfaces will be limited.
BlackBerry handhelds run Java-based BlackBerry OS
Needless to say, Nokia's Series 60 platform is the most popular. According to Canalys, Series 60 enjoyes upto 72.8% of the smartphone market, followed closely by Linux at 16.7% and Windows Mobile with an abysmal 5.6%. The Linux figure, however impressive, includes non-smartphones also. Nokia's Series 60 is not popular just because it's Nokia - which makes anything they promote popular by default - but because S60 makes the phone in your hand more powerful, compared to Windows Mobile that essentially creates lesser powerful computers in your hand. It's this approach that makes using Series 60 a very natural process for any user.
We hope this article clears up any confusions and misconceptions about smartphones you may have had. If not, use the comments box below to let me know.
