Why are our mini-computers called smartphones?

[The Grand Nudger]

I mainly use mine as a phone.

Like..to talk to people?  With your voice?  Doesn't it have text? 

I can't talk shit tho. My wife handed me an iphone last week..first phone I've had since I was a teen. She didn't ask, just handed it to me. Here's your phone, this is your number, call me.

[AFTT47]

Dumbphones didn't test as well during the marketing phase.

Neither did, "Immature, Dumb-ass Phones." But watching some of my co-workers with these things suggests to me that that would have been a more appropriate name.

[Fireball]

I got a new phone a couple of weeks ago, after the wife ran the other one through the washing machine. First time I've let her launder any of my clothes in over 20 years. I use the phone and the camera. The rest of it is superfluous bullshit, until I need it. The internet is useful on occasion, if I need to find a place I've never been to before. That happened once. If there are games on it, I don't know what they are, and don't care. The only reason I have it is because my $30 burner phone from Target wouldn't hold a charge anymore. I used T-Mobile pay-as-you-go, as I only wanted it for emergencies, not to sit at intersections texting or talking manamanamanaheeheehee instead of driving off when the signal goes green.

[The Grand Nudger]

I like the calculator and the flashlight, personally. Also..yelling at siri and trying to get her to look up fucked up shit.

Siri! On average, how many midgets does a full grown horse weigh, and who is the king of prussia?

[I_am_not_mafia]

I don''t own a mobile phone. People occassionally give me a crapphy phone if I need it, say I am in hospital or need to get a lift from somewhere but I use it for texting. I do own a tablet though. I intend buying one with 4G capability next. Technically it's a phone but Iwon't use it like that.

[Aroura]

Most of us own a pocket-sized computer that can do literally hundreds of things, one of which is making phone calls. So why are these miniature computers called "smartphones"?

Because the ability to call is probably the only function that, if it were missing, would cause you not to carry that device around any more.

That's probably it, for most people.  But my husband and I didn't own smartphones (well, we had windows phones very briefly) until we decided to move overseas.  Now, I hate using the phone feature, and every time it rings (which is about twice a month at most), I about have a panic attack.  I think my husband's is used as a phone maybe 5 or 6 times total in the last 14 months.

We text each other if we need to communicate, and other than that it is basically my GPS and portable translator.  I do have a word game and coloring book app on there for if we are stuck somewhere and me or my daughter are really bored, and I can and do use it to access AF to play mafia if I'm out for a while.  But as a phone? No.  That is it's least used function for us.

[possibletarian]

I think mainly because they started life as mobile phones and evolved, You are right though they are in effect a mini computer.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Most of us own a pocket-sized computer that can do literally hundreds of things, one of which is making phone calls. So why are these miniature computers called "smartphones"?

Because the ones that don't are called tablets?

At least one company makes a tablet with a cell phone integral. IIRC you dock the phone into the tablet when needed. Great idea or kludge fix, who knows.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Last time a time a type of computing device was called a mini-computer, they were the size of cupboards. They were called mini computers because normal computers were the size of rooms. These were called mainframes. A smartphone has many orders of magnitude more processing power than the majority of mainframes in computing's history.

---

That's probably it, for most people.  But my husband and I didn't own smartphones (well, we had windows phones very briefly) until we decided to move overseas.  Now, I hate using the phone feature, and every time it rings (which is about twice a month at most), I about have a panic attack.  I think my husband's is used as a phone maybe 5 or 6 times total in the last 14 months.

We text each other if we need to communicate, and other than that it is basically my GPS and portable translator.  I do have a word game and coloring book app on there for if we are stuck somewhere and me or my daughter are really bored, and I can and do use it to access AF to play mafia if I'm out for a while.  But as a phone? No.  That is it's least used function for us.

When we moved to Germany in 2011 I ended up buying our first smart phone for my husband. He used it as a portable translation device, for the map and to locate shops and services. It was invaluable for that. There was no one to actually phone him though.

We made the mistake though of taking out a contract with O2 to pay for it. They were a nightmare from beginning to end. First giving us too many sim cards that we had to pay for, and then having to cancel it a year in advance. We only managed to convince them to stop taking money out of our account for a service we weren't using when I can prove that we had moved out of the country.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

When I was at Purdue the Adaptive Services Lab needed a minicomputer to run Dragon Dictate. (Mid-'90s.) It barely fit into the elevator.