As the years progressed, and the usage of the internet grew, the demand of users having data services increased, which introduced the generation of mobiles that allowed users to have data access anywhere, anytime. But something was still missing, that essence, that liberates the user from the hassle to adapt according to the working of mobile phone.
But as the generations pass, the mobile computing capabilities become more efficient and smart. A mobile phone doesn't just make calls and send messages now, but is also a handheld device to:
• Store your data
• Access the internet
• Manage personal information
• Use applications like word processor or video games etc.
And the main inspiration of this evolution was the increasing human demands for technology that matches their fast paced life style and lets them perform their routine computing task anytime, anywhere.
This Custom Application Development trend has configured the mobiles according to the need of the user and now, it's not the user who adapts according to the applications. This is some thing that makes the phones of this generation, "SMART".
But a question that often strikes our mind is what makes these phones smart and differentiates them with the previous versions of the mobile phones.
The answer is the smart-phones technology. The technology parameters that were used to develop a mobile phone a decade back have completely been wiped out with the new ones.
Today's smart phones run on processors with clock speed ranging 100-600 MHz, like the power efficient ARM processors. Other than the processors, it's the computer chips that provide functionality. Earlier, a number of chips were used on the chip board; each for separate functionality, this may increase the performance of the phone but at the cost of the battery backup. More number of chips means more power consumption and less battery backup. But newer smart phones come with the integrated chips that perform the functionality of number of chips without compromising the performance, all this with lesser power consumption.
The ambient light sensors present in Apple's iPhone provide it with a longer battery life and reduce the power consumption by automatically adjusting the brightness of display according to the ambient light present in the scene. It's not only the hardware advancement, but also the software advancements that have helped in making smart-phones valuable.
Software of the smart-phone is basically a stack of different software, in layers. Like:
• Kernel, which manages all the processes and driver allocations for hardware.
• Middleware, which holds all the software libraries for the applications.
• Application Execution Environment, which allows developers to develop applications.
• User Interface, the main layout of the screen.
• Application Suite, applications that user access regularly.
Each genre of smart phones has a combination of the above mentioned layers. Few have a full set of all the layers, while others have only the required ones i.e. Kernel and middleware, rest layers in them were supplied to the user separately as a service or through some other application platform.
And, this flexibility of the smart phones have let the innovation about the Mobile App Development and functionality of applications, cross borders of imagination and thus, providing numerous applications that allow the user to customize the phone according to their need and call them smart in their own personal context.
Author Resource:
Kevin James is the author of this article. He has been writing articles for Offshore Product Development Company like Q3 Technologies. Kevin also has interest in writing article about Enterprise Applications