Three minutes. That is how long I used my phone for talking purposes in one week. A few weeks ago I used this column to say goodbye to my smartphone. But being the smartphone addict I am, two weeks later I threw my dumbphone in the drawer where it will stay for the next 20 years when I will sell it on ebay. Disgusted by my addiction I have decided to test my smartphone usage just to see what is so addicting. So I switched off my iPad for a week, and noted down how long I used my phone for different tasks. And three minutes is the time that I actually used for voice calls on my phone in a week. That does not mean I don’t talk to people. I ‘talk’ to people through other means like iMessage, Whatsapp or Twitter. And apart from all that talking, I used my phone for four to five hours of browsing, reading, and watching movies per day. If you compare this usage figure with many of today’s smartphone users, you will notice that what we have in our pockets is a powerful computer. A smart computer that does not even justify the name ‘phone’ anymore.
This is the biggest reason why users prefer bigger screens on their smartphones. And this is the reason behind the birth and phenomenal growth of that latest category of devices that fall between the humble phone and the tablet. A device that some people would like to call a ‘phablet’. Before 2007, our phones still carried the baggage of keyboards, their screens used to be tiny affairs. When the iPhone debuted in 2007, and introduced us to the big chunk of glass, suddenly screen sizes went from an average of 2.5 inches to a massive 3.5 inches then. Since then every phone that wanted to take on the iPhone stuck to that size. Even though a few companies like Dell experimented with screen sizes, it is Samsung with its tendency of throwing all phone sizes at the wall to see which sticks, that came up with the first truly successful phablet. With its massive 5.3-inch screen, the Galaxy Note heralded a new era, and today every smartphone maker is competing to make their screens bigger. Even Apple was forced to accommodate that change by increasing iPhone’s screen size a tiny bit to 4 inches. The crown jewel may yet be Galaxy Note 8.0, with a massive 8-inch screen that Samsung is promising to release later this year.
This new-found popularity is doubtless aided by the fact that we are increasingly using our phones for content consumption aided by faster data connections which will only get faster with the introduction and widespread use of 4G technology. Another aspect behind the growth of the phablet is simple economics where people find it economical both financially and size wise to carry one device that they could be used as a tablet and a phone, instead of carrying around two different devices. And proliferation of earphones and Bluetooth devices means users need not bother putting massive chunks of glass to the sides of their heads to make phone calls.
Having said that, the phablet phenomenon increasingly looks like the beginning of the end for the smartphone. Or at least the beginning of the end for the form factor of the smartphone as we know it. As we start using wearable gadgets like smart watches, glasses and maybe even contact lenses for our computing purposes, the square chunk of glass will become obsolete. But just before getting obsolete, it seems to be getting bigger. At least for now.
The writer is a tech geek. Email: articles@theadarsh.net