Smartphone next handheld for 41% of public
updated 03:40 pm EDT, Thu June 11, 2009
Smartphone Next for Many
About 41 percent of home users plan to buy a smartphone as their next portable device, the Yankee Group has concluded in a new study. The difference puts the devices above regular phones, media players and other handhelds, and is characterized as part of a broader trend towards smartphones as a whole. Analysts at Yankee estimate that as much as 38 percent of the total cellphone market could be using smartphones by 2013.
The expansion is credited to an increasing desire to do more than just make calls as data and media playback become more accessible.
Such findings arrive just as Apple has cut the price of an iPhone 3G to $99 and as Palm has launched the Pre, spurring the use of smartphones as pocket computers rather than just calling devices. Low-cost predecessors like the BlackBerry Pearl and Palm Centro have also helped lay the groundwork for that level of growth by quickly hitting the $99 mark.
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We'll, I guess we are pretty much stuck with the term "smartphone", but these new devices are really so much more than that. The are pocket sized computers with wireless internet connections that also happen to be a phone.
I mention this b/c while most of us reading the related news know the difference, your average user (and I've seen this happen a number of times) just ask - why would I pay for $$$ for a PHONE.
We geeks or geek-lights, if you will, get it, but there's a much larger population that doesn't - even folks you'd think would know often just know how to do what they need to do for a job like using word and excel.
As simple as the iPhone is to use - it's still beyond some people - and yes, unfortunately they tend to be older. I wonder if someone's ever done a graph on age worth vs. tech savviness.