How smart does your phone need to be?

Mobile phones come with ever more features; whether we use them is crucial to a billion-dollar industry.Can your phone take pictures? Probably yes.

But can it sync with the diary and contacts on your computer? Download and play music and videos? Play video games? Browse the web, do your e-mail? Tell you where you are and where to go? Your answers are important - not just when you decide on your next mobile phone. A whole range of industries is waiting for you to make up your mind, because it bets that you will want a phone that is smart, and sends and receives plenty of data.

Smart, kind of : Once upon a time the dividing line was clear: there were smartphones, expensive but chunky bricks with plenty of office applications; and then there were smaller consumer phones that allowed you to text and talk. Today, boundaries are blurred. So-called feature-rich phones are everywhere. Unlike true smartphones they may not be able to run more than one or two programs at a time. Apart from that you'll be hard pressed to tell the difference.

To make such a phone a true money spinner, it has to have a fast 3G data connection, says Paul Goode, senior analyst at M:metrics, a consulting firm. Take HTC's TYTN II, sold on the UK market by T-Mobile as MDA Vario III. With its slide-out keyboard and tilting screen it resembles a mini laptop, complete with browser, office software and GPS navigation system. But do people need mini-computers like that? "There are two categories of phone users," says Anders Runevad, head of sales at phone maker Sony Ericsson. "Those who have time to kill: they want to fill it with entertainment, blogging, surfing and sharing with friends. And those who have time to create: they use office applications, calendar, e-mail." The industry is working hard to find out which features are best for what kind of user. "Most phones sold into the market now tend to specialise in different things - the internet, music or e-mail," says Richard Warmsley, T-Mobile UK's head of internet on the move. "It's about matching different types of services with the needs of different customers."

"Yes, we in the industry push features on consumers," says Mats Lindoff, the chief technology officer of phone maker Sony Ericsson. But it works. Take camera phones. They were derided at first. Today half of all mobile phone users in the UK take pictures with their mobiles, and a quarter send them on. Camera phones have been a "phenomenal success" says Paul Goode. Now the industry hopes that mobile data - web, e-mail, music downloads - will be the next goldmine.
Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk