8 Things You Must Know about Smartphones

Smartphones Are Huge

Although they may be small to look at and fit neatly into the palm of your hand, the popularity of smartphones is spreading like wildfire. In the last quarter of 2010, over one hundred million smartphones were sold. For the first time ever, this number was more than the amount of personal computers sold in the same quarter. Experts estimate that by the end of 2011, over half of the population of the United States will own a smartphone.

Internet Is Key

While smartphones may be huge, the Internet is bigger, and a smartphone without the Internet is like a hamburger without a bun. Currently, a quarter of smartphone users rarely access the Internet from anywhere else except their smartphone. Experts are projecting that by the year 2013, smartphones will be the primary device that people use to access the Internet, having finally overtaken personal computers and laptops. If your smartphone doesn’t yet have access to the Internet, it may be time to think about getting a new one.

Power Is Precious

Even with few phone calls being made or received, many smartphones tend to run low on battery more than once a day. The strength of the smartphone’s battery is surpassing even its design or the quality of its camera in importance. More and more people are bringing their chargers with them wherever they go. Checking your email, watching videos, and playing games will all drain your battery quickly, so avoid these things if you’re trying to preserve power.

Call Quality is Linked to Design

If you ever look at a photo of an early cell phone, you may notice with some amusement the giant antenna protruding from its back. Today’s smartphones have eliminated the necessity of an unsightly antenna because the device itself acts as the phone’s antenna. Unfortunately, however, some of the more aesthetically designed smartphones fall short in the call quality arena because the aesthetics of the phone short-changes its antenna function. In the worst cases, the phone’s awesome design can cause calls to be missed or dropped.

Most Smartphone Apps Get Boring Fast

Depending on the platform of your smartphone, there may be thousands of apps available to you or even hundreds of thousands. The average smartphone user downloads at least four new apps every month. Unfortunately, however, studies show that the vast majority of apps downloaded – a whopping 90 percent – are only used about ten times and then forgotten. Being selective about which apps you download and deleting the ones you don’t use will save you space and battery life.

Your Smartphone Knows You Better Than You May Think

Even though some things your smartphone knows about you may be obvious – things like your contact information, what you’ve said in your text messages, and who your friends are – some other things it knows may surprise you. Your smartphone can be used to find your present location as well as other locations that you have recently visited. It may also be used to find incriminating pictures of you, dubious websites you may have accessed, and what your future plans are.

Smartphone Privacy Is Thin

The worst part about your smartphone knowing you so well is that very little of the information it contains is actually kept private. Although the policies of Internet and phone providers vary, many of them contain provisions for the information of their users to be accessed when necessary.

There Are Smartphone Viruses

Although there are a lot fewer of these than personal computer viruses, they do exist. The vast majority of smartphone viruses only affect jailbroken or modified phones, but viruses that attack regular smartphones are growing in number.