Smarting Smartphones

They take photos, record videos, send real-time messages, play games, keeping personal diaries, access radio and television channels and tap into the internet superhighway giving the user millions of possibilities. This combined with the fact that some perform their core function of calling with flair makes smart phones science’s best gift to mankind.

Owning one of these handheld mini robots, especially among the urbanite young and young at heart, is the new craze in town. Smart phones are the frontiers of mobile telephone technology which has advanced through the decades from crude and cumbersome contraptions to the modern day super gadgets. 

Makers of these “intelligent” phones are capitalizing on this by launching new models after every few months, the latest being Apple’s iPhone 5 that will go in the market of September 21^st.

But this evolutionary communication technology, scientists warn, has come along with not only a high economic price tag but also a cultural and social one. The highly interactive nature of smart phones is creating habits and addictions among users that sometimes interfere with their daily lives.

Researchers have identified a tendency they call “checking” where smart phone owners frequently look and tap on their phone menu screens to check emails, news and update information on social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The scientists from Helsinki Institute for Information and Technology (HIIT) also claim that users are constantly engaged in the “checking habits” throughout their waking hours.

“What concerns us here is that if your habitual response to, say, boredom, is that you pick up the phone to find interesting stimuli, you will be systematically distracted from the more important things happening around you,” explained Anti Oulasvirta, lead researcher during the HIIT study. “Habits are automatically triggered behaviours and compromise the more conscious control that some situations require”.

The checking is characterized by browsing while commuting in a Matatu to check the current trends in Twitter, or up date a status in Facebook or check the latest scores between Manchester United and Fulham before one reaches home or home pub to watch it live. Others are taking the habit too far by even going to bed with their phones, literary. Many consider these tendencies irritating rather than a form of addiction.

“Being “hooked up” to the smart phone emanates from the fact that they can perform so many actions from a single platform”, observes Michael Ochula, a communication expert and lecturer at University of Nairobi. “From sharing weather information, listening to favourite radio shows, charting to watching movies and YouTube videos smart phones are fast becoming the most preferred adult plaything both in Kenya and Africa, with the number of those accessing internet via mobile outnumbering those doing so via desktops”.

But he says that although smart phones have made communication a one stop shop where users can do tasks in one platform he says they are also breeding a class of lazy and poor citizens. 

“This is because smart phone users mostly spend their time in social sites like Facebook rather than in places where one can get valuable knowledge,” he claims.

And with the smart phones rapidly changing and adding new complicated applications meant to appeal to users’ entertainment needs, scientists say we might end up having more smart phones in the hands of a dump population in the not-too-distant future. 

The entry of cell phones in the Kenyan market a decade ago led to men priding themselves in statements like “mine is smaller than yours”, a rarity in this side of the world, since then smaller phones were considered cool and classy. But thanks to smart phones matters mobile are playing unto the hands of the age old male obsession with every thing large, from cars to physical attributes.

Unlike many ordinary phones, smart phones usually come in big frames because of the components and the technology that they are designed to support. 

“The reason why these devices are bigger than ordinary phones is the fact that they support more components and actions, which is made necessary by the fact that people buy them principally because of the applications rather than calling,” explains Charles Ryoba, an information technology consultant. “They have faster processors and speedier network connections to make it easier for user watching videos, reading magazine articles, playing games or charting in real time”.

This and the fact that they need bigger batteries to support the numerous functions also add to their usually large size with most of the space dedicated to the screen, the most important feature of a smart phone. 

While the Samsung Galaxy Note, a crossbreed between a smart phone and a tablet often referred to as “Phablet”, has the biggest screen at 5.3 inches smart phones have gradually increased in their size since their inception from 3.5 inches to 4.5 inches and beyond. 

The Nokia Lumia 920 is 4.5 inches, Samsung Galaxy Nexus has a screen size of 4.65, Motorola Droid is 4.3 inch and the iPhone 5 is 4 inches.

Besides the screen sizes, smart phone users also take great pride in the width of the gadget which has pushed manufacturers to ensure each of their release is slimmer than its predecessor. 

During the iPhone 5 launch in San Francisco its creators were quick to emphasize that the phone was “the thinnest smart phone in the world with a glass and aluminum body that is 18 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter than iPhone 4S”.

As a sign of how advanced smart phones have become they are now said to pack more computing power than the spacecraft that took the Apollo 11 astronauts that included Neil Armstrong to the moon in 1969.

To confirm their frontline position in the advancement of modern technology National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is said to be developing a spacecraft powered by commercial smart phones. 

“The idea here is to integrate cheaper, off-the-shelf smart phone components into platforms for which NASA often builds its own technology from scratch,” explains an edit from the organization “This will allow NASA to take advantage of Silicon Valley’s rapid-refresh approach to technology development that pushes new devices and technologies into the market place at a torrid rate”.

One of the most sort after smart phones in the market right now is the Samsung Galaxy S3. Marketed through the popular tagline “inspired by nature, designed for humans”, this gadget is implanted with software that responds to look and voice in a robotic manner. 

“With S Voice, you can tell Galaxy S3 to turn off the alarm for a few minutes so you can snooze a bit more,” the manufacturer’s website explains. “You can also answer or reject a call, turn the music volume up or down, even tell the camera when to shoot”.

Released on a fancy fanfare in London in June 2012, Samsung claims that its flagship product has sold more than 20 million units since its inception in the fiercely competitive global smart phone market. However, this is dwarfed by its competitor iPhone 4S which is said to have sold more than 30 million units in its first three months in the market.  

The iPhone 5, released to the market last week, is Apple slimmest phone with an inbuilt ability to operate 4G internet networks. Many smart phone market observers are already speculating the features that they expect in Samsung Galaxy S4 expected to be released to counter the iPhone 5.

The competition between Apple and Samsung, who enjoys a smart phone market share of 50 percent between them according to market research companies, has been so furious and intense that their lawyers are perpetually working round the clock.

The recent spark was triggered by Apple who accused Samsung of duplicating features of the iPhone series in the production of Galaxy S models. A judge in the United States, Apple’s home country, ruled in favour of Steve Job’s empire saying that the first two models of the Galaxy S imitated significant features of iPhone in a manner that warranted a ban in Uncle Sam. 

Samsung lawyers and market competitors read business politics meant to boost the profile of the iPhone 5 launch which they claim is expected to boost the US gross domestic product (GDP).

The court awarded Apple a whooping $1.05 billion (Sh82 billion) which led to rumours in the Internet, later proved to be a hoax, claiming that Samsung had decided to pay the fine in 30 truckloads of five cent coins. 

But while the two giants engage in a titanic battle of supremacy to control the global smart phone market, users are the biggest beneficiary since the gadgets are becoming better and fancier. This means they can perform more functions and interact with their owners at a more humanly levels.

“Smart phones have brought in productivity in terms of efficient time management,” explains Ryoba. “This cuts across all spheres of life from students, businessmen to the average daily user since they can do many things on one platform without leaving the comforts of their homes”.

He explains how a student can study or research for his term paper while seated in a Matatu while a businessman can handle an internal purchase order and source suppliers for a tender in the middle of a traffic jam. 

“But it has also been a source of constant disruption especially when a user becomes too attached to their gadgets,” Ryoba explains. “If a juicy gossip or story is going on in the social networks you can find yourself browsing instead of sleeping while between the sheets or checking your emails while in a meeting or a conference”. 

He concurs that smart phone addiction among the middle class youth is bound to be a major issue as most of them become hooked to games, social networks, charting and watching stuff on their smart phones.

But compared to countries like the United Kingdom (UK), Kenya is still in its infancy when it comes to smart phone addictions. A report released by the UK telecommunications regulator Ofcom indicated that a quarter of British population and half its youth owns a smart phone, making the country one of the most smart phone addicted countries in the world.

The riots that rocked London last year were said to have been accelerated by youths communicating through the free and untraceable Blackberry Messenger (BBM) service. 

Go-Globe, a Gulf-based internet research company says that the countries with the highest smart phone penetration in percentages are Singapore (54), Canada (39), Hong Kong (35), Sweden (35), Spain (35), USA (35), Australia (33), Norway (33), New Zealand (32) and Denmark (31).

Mr. Ochula says that smart phones are affecting social skills since people are becoming comfortable and confident communicating through virtual platforms like Facebook and Twitter than they do face to face. 

“Before these gadgets happened in our society people would call or visit people where they would have face to face conversations,” he says. “Today smart phones and technology are killing this since one can chart, Skype, text, or simply interact on the social platforms without ever meeting the person face”.

He also says that smart phones are also fueling anti- social behavior among Kenyan youths like watching pornography and promiscuity promoted by social network dating.