Smart Phones Changed Our Lives
Today’s article will look at a device that has become so popular and so sort after that most people believe they can’t ever live without one – the smart phone. How technology can drive trends is nothing short of viral and the evidence is everywhere you walk, especially if you visit the mall in Brisbane or a railway station or airport terminal.
Such is the fascination with smart phones that we have people sometimes walking into each other or worse, walking into cars or even trains! We even see crowd’s cueing overnight to get the first released phones of a particular new model. Many people will be familiar with the capabilities of these devices however a quick rundown of their many uses as well as some handy hints should prove helpful.
Let’s start with the obvious category of use which is that of making or receiving a phone call and again we will concentrate on the more modern crop of smart phones – ones released in the last year or two. The benefits of a smart phone over a standard mobile phone are many. In this category we have the added features of being able to split your contacts into groups and the ability to assign a particular ring tone and or picture to many of your most common contacts.
With a smart phone you have the ability to see who is calling if they are in your contacts as well as being able to conference a call or reject a call with a text message. You can also call direct to a business or phone number that you have just Internet searched to on the phone. Other very standard features are simple things like adding the last dialled or received numbers to your contacts list.
When it comes SMS messages (texting) smart phones add the ability to send combined content messages such as text with pictures or web links. You can also send one of your contacts to a friend whereby they simply ‘import’ the text message and they now have the contact name and number saved into their phone.
So far we have only scratched the surface because we have to add the ability of smart phones to browse Internet sites, send and receive emails, make skype like calls, set alarms and reminders, be able to be used as remote controls for air conditioners and televisions, work as calculators, offer very reasonable camera capabilities, offer music storage and playback and all of these are very much standard features.
Adding to the list above there are literally thousands of apps (task specific applications) that can be installed on a smart phone to literally add the ability to perform a specific task. Now-a-days you can add an app to track you pizza delivery, analyse Wi-Fi networks, browse particular sites such as banking or ebay, place orders with popular vendors and do these tasks with good degrees of efficiency.
Also adding to their usefulness is the ability of smart phones to give you an instant readout of weather conditions, tide times, current location, the best way to get to another location and arm you with the knowledge of how to find the closest fuel station, restaurant or a host of many other facilities – similar to how a GPS would function.
Yesterday I went through the smart phone purchase process with Jayden at the Telstra Business Centre in Red Hill and ended up being their first customer to purchase the new Samsung S7 which was only released on Friday. Next week I will report on my experience with this latest smart phone and also offer some handy hints associated with smart phone usage and ownership.
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
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