According to a recent survey by Nielsen 55% of all new phones purchased are smartphones. Really just 55%? Who is buying all those dumbphones? Keep in mind that this survey was about new purchased phones. This means that about every second person in the US buys a “traditional” cellphone. Given that the sales person or the web team has an incentive to upgrade you to a more expensive smartphone, I have to assume the number of people with the intention to buy ‘just a phone’ must be even higher. Why are they doing this? Are they not smart? Must be an education thing, right?
The Artist formerly known as Phone
Maybe there is something wrong with the statistics? It’s called smartphone but I think it should be called something different. I have two of them, one iPhone 4 and an HTC Incredible. Both are great devices but I almost never use them for calls. Sure I have my fair share of phone conversations but considering the overall use of the devices I have a dozen of equal or more important applications like email, Facebook, Twitter, Chatter, browser, time tracking, photo & video, calendar GPS. Maybe we rename it to ‘the artist formerly known as Phone’.
Dumbphone vs. Smartphone Analysis
Why aren’t We all Smart?But we get distracted from the real question of the dumbphone and who is buying them. There is obviously a major problem when about half of the nation is not smart enough to buy the right phone. What are those people doing all day? How do they update their status or how do they find their way to the next Starbucks. And they must be starving, I doubt there are still places that serve food without the check-in. I can’t believe we spend all that energy debating healthcare while half of the country needs to beg for direction to the next meal.No Kid left BehindI vote for a national plan to provide everyone with a smartphone. The world would be a much better place. Any dictator would fear our ability to mobilize the masses to protest. We would terminate world hunger by providing restaurant recommendations to third world countries. And all that useless spending on education would be obsolete as long they have a reliable mobile access to Wikipedia. With that the kids could move right to the valley to develop an app against teenage pregnancy. Crime rates would drop with the ability to mob your rival gang members on Facebook. No question, the next election is going to be about smartphones.Fordism goes Viral So with all those benefits, why are people still buying those dumbphones? Maybe we need to apply Fordism to the Smartphone market. Legend says that Henry Ford had the idea to produce affordable devises so every worker could buy one. Plus, the basic mobile data infrastructure should be free to everybody, just as we have decent roads covered we should have free internet highways. Maybe with Google’s recent acquisition of Motorola we see a googlization of the smartphone market. Once every worker, secretary or driver at Motorola can afford a smart phone (and a dataplan), all of our great supporters like our troops, our nurses or our teachers (those that could really benefit from being better connected) can also afford one. I am sure we all appreciate them for keeping the country moving while we tweet along.Picture Source: Lime GreensData Source: Nielsen
