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In the world of mobile technology, smartphones are the only handsets worth talking about these days it seems. The following guide will explain in simple terms how they differ from normal mobile phones, what they do and how they actually work.

Introduction to Smartphones

Traditional mobile phones are made to tackle your communication needs such as making and receiving calls or texting. Smartphones differ in that they offer much more than this because they provide many of the same functions as you’re used to from your computer.

Smartphones allow you to install, configure and run the applications of your choice. In effect, this means the individual can tailor their mobile device to an unprecedented degree and access a range of functions from one tidy device.

These are some of the core things smartphones can do:

E-mail – increasingly smartphones are Wi-Fi capable.
Instant messaging.
Personal Information Management, including calendar, notes and To-Do list.
Communication with laptop or desktop computers.
Data synchronisation with applications like Microsoft Outlook and Apple’s iCal calendar programs.
Download and run advanced applications such as video games.
Play audio and video files.

Future smartphone applications that are already in development seem to show that the sky is the limit when it comes to the range of functions they will be able to perform. For example, near field communication technology will allow your smartphone to act as a wireless credit card at retail stores.

Smartphone Hardware

Processing Power

These days, smartphones run on computing processors with speeds that range from 100 – 624 MHz, and a 1 GHz processor is on its way. Many smartphones use power-efficient ARM processors, the same kind that can be found in printers, routers and MP3 players. They will also offer on-board memory storage in the tens of megabytes, and many devices have slots for removable memory to offer extra storage in the same way that you would use an external hard-drive for your computer.

Computer Chip Functionality

Computer chips give smartphones their functionality. This includes cameras with high-resolution image sensors like digital cameras, real-time web browsing, sharing multimedia files or playing music – without draining your phone’s battery life excessively. Some manufacturers also develop chips that integrate multiple functions to help reduce the overall cost of their handset, meaning with fewer chips per phone, their production costs and thus their retail prices are lowered.

It must be said that recent hardware innovations have led the way to become what users will expect as standard from a good smartphone. For example, Apple’s iPhone has an accelerometer that lets you change the view from portrait to landscape format by simply turning the phone 90 degrees. Also, dial buttons for calling are increasingly being replaced by touchscreen (the iPhone has no dial buttons at all). Then there are power saving features gaining ground – the iPhone has ambient light sensors that automatically adjusts the brightness of the display based on how much light is present in your surroundings.

Smartphone Software

The software that smartphones use is arranged as a stack (similar to computers) that consists of the following layers:

Kernel – this contains the key management systems for smartphone computing processes and drivers that operate their hardware.
Middleware – here you have software libraries that run your smartphone applications such as web browsing, security, etc.
Application Execution Environment (AEE) – this consists of the application programming interfaces which allow developers to create new programs.
User Interface Framework – allows for the graphics and layouts seen on your screen.
Application Suite – these are the basic applications you would access regularly, such as calendars, menu screens and message inboxes.

Smartphone Operating System (OS)

The OS of a smartphone is crucial to how it functions, what its limits are and the range of applications you will be able to enjoy. The two main contenders in the eye of the general public these days are Google’s Android OS and the Apple iOS. Since the platform your smartphone runs on is so important to how you experience mobile technology, this will be thoroughly explained in a separate article.

Conclusion

The break-neck speed at which smartphones are progressing is opening up a seemingly limitless world of possibilities affecting how we manage and enjoy our lives. Whether you’re tech-savvy and constantly keeping an eye out for the latest and coolest apps to download, or whether you simply have a set list of needs to support you while on the go, smartphones have significantly raised the bar when it comes to what you can accomplish with a mobile handset.