On 04/07/14 15:42, Hugo Roy wrote: > ↪ 2014-07-04 Fri 14:40, Daniel Pocock <[email protected]>: >>> I don’t know how you feel about the term, but we can agree that >>> it’s just a marketing invention. What’s wrong with you if you >> Not quite - I think it serves to differentiate phones that can run apps >> from those that only act as firmware >> >> In other words, a smartphone is a basic phone + a PDA/pocket computer > I think you’re missing the point of the discussion. I know what a > smartphone refers to the object you describes, but that’s not what > the term smartphone means in itself. Smartphone is a combination > of “smart” and “phone” and there’s no denying that this > combination is pure marketing. Another illustration of this is how > new objects are being sold with “smart” in front of it: Smart Tv, > Smar fridge, smart fork and whatnot.
Ok, so "smart" is convenient marketing but if we want to refer to such a phone, as distinct from a legacy mobile, just using the word "mobile" may not be sufficient Is there any other terms that could be used? > >>> haven’t got a smartphone: maybe you’re just dumb, right? >>> >>> I feel we should restrain from using this marketing term. >>> Especially, I think it’s misleading to say that the phone is smart >>> or for smart people. Moreover, the way these phones operating >>> systems are designed by contrast to classic operating systems, >>> they are actually less “smart”: the interesting computation does >>> not happen on the device itself, but on the >>> Google/Apple/Amazon/etc. server. >> This, too, is not universally true. Many good apps do run entirely >> within the phone and they deserve more recognition. > It does not invalidate the premise that the operating system is > not designed to run autonomously. We have to put a lot of efforts > into modifying it so that it’s true. > > A good example is the recent development of Google Play Services > and the Google Cloud Messenging (sic?) layers that are proprietary > and connected and on which more and more Android Apps have to rely > on. > > The object that’s marketed as the “smartphone” is sold; not what > you are doing with it as a free software hacker ;-) > I agree that is a disturbing trend and it is not something that anybody should be comfortable with. I'm not trying to deny that at all. >>> I also think that it’s not accurate to call these phones any more, >>> since they’re a lot more. So I suggest we just use the term >>> "mobiles" or "mobile devices". >> Personally, I prefer to hear somebody say smartphone when they would >> otherwise say something worse, like iPhone > At least calling an iPhone an iPhone is accurate and noone’s > fooled that it’s a marketing brand. Not quite what I was getting at - many people are actually using the term iPhone to refer to any type of smartphone and this appears to be worse than using the term smartphone _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
