How the smartphone is killing the PC
Posted in: Internet Use/New Technologies at 06/06/2011 16:10
The smartphones in our pockets are far more powerful than the desktop computers we dreamed of in the 1980s. This year they are outselling PCs - and soon they could replace our wallets as well
When he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes last summer, Tim Smith was given a blood sugar monitor, and a notebook with a pencil. The monitor, obviously, to test his sugar levels; the notebook to note them down so he could tell his doctor.
Given his job in IT for Sainsbury's, Smith wasn't about to use something so low-tech as pencil and paper. "I would have lost it or torn it," he says. A few years ago, he says, he probably would have taken the readings and entered them in an Excel spreadsheet on his PC, to make pretty graphs.
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Smith is just one of the millions of people around the world who now own a smartphone, and the number is growing rapidly. In the first three months of this year, just under half of all the 45m mobile phones sold in western Europe fell into that category - able to browse the web, send and receive email, and run custom-written apps. That's as well as storing contacts and calendars, sending text messages and (how quaint) making phone calls. Worldwide, smartphones represent 24% of all mobiles sold worldwide between January and March - up from 15% a year before. The tipping point when they make up 50% may only be a year or so away. And before the end of the decade, every phone sold will be what we'd now call a smartphone.
To read this report in The Guardian in full, see:
www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/05/smartphones-killing-pc
