HOW DO CELL PHONES BECOME SMARTPHONES?

One of the things you’ll notice about cell phones is that they’re constantly surrounded by jargon. One of the newest bits of jargon to appear in the past few years has been the “smartphone.” Obviously, cell phones don’t possess their own intelligence and so this is, at best, a misnomer. In many ways, it’s more of a marketing tool than it is any kind of accurate description about the device. That said, it’s a term that the industry uses and as such it’s worth taking a few minutes to ask exactly what makes a cell phone a smartphone.
In the most basic sense, a smartphone is just a type of cell phone that lets you do some extra stuff. Sure, you can make telephone calls with a smartphone, but you can also do lots of other things. A smartphone will typically have features similar to what a PDA or a computer has, including things like accessing email or browsing the Internet.
Here are some of the key features that you should consider if you’re looking at buying a smartphone:
OS. The Operating System on which the phone runs allows the smartphone to run all of its cool applications. For example, a BlackBerry smartphone uses Blackberry OS, while an Android phone uses the Google Android OS. Apple iPhones rely on the iOS software from Apple.
Software and applications. Most cell phones today have some software included, such as an address book or a calculator. Smartphones, however, usually have a large amount of software and applications available. With smartphones, you may be able to do things like play MP3 files, open Microsoft Word documents, edit photos and more.
Internet capability. The ability to browse the web is another feature of smartphones. Thanks to recent technologies like 3G and 4G wireless data service, you can actually browse the Internet at decent speeds right from your smartphone. Some smartphones also offer you the ability to us wireless (WiFi) networks, as well.
Keyboards. Most smartphones have a traditional QWERTY keyboard. That may be a tactile keyboard such as you’ll find with the BlackBerry smartphones, or it may be a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard such as you’ll find with the iPhone.
Messaging. Most cell phones today can send and receive text messages, but smartphones take it a step further. They can often send and receive email, as well as attachments with their messaging programs.