The smartphone truly has arrived. According to the big technology sites and even the mainstream news the smartphone is the new mobile phone, but we tend to ignore such hyperbole because there is a new big thing every week. While on holiday last week I decided to take my family for lunch and we ended up in a quaint coffee shop that served sandwiches, tea and post food to older people of a certain class. People who wear ties every day even in the middle of summer.
We ordered our food and once I had gotten over the price I started to observe my fellow diners and something remarkable happened.
The couple on the table next to us were using an HTC Hero and a Samsung Galaxy S. They were both about 50 years old and did not look, for one moment, like the smartphone brigade we tend to think of. I thought I was imagining it, but a second look proved that it was true.
On the table next to them were a couple with two young children, presumably grandchildren, and here I saw an HTC Touch Pro and an HTC Desire.
A lady waiting to be seated had an iPhone 3G (or 3GS) in her hand and she must have been over 60, or had a very hard life.
Everywhere I looked was a smartphone that I had perceived to be used by the younger generation, but every one of them was in the hands of a generation I had considered to be just about capable of using a standard mobile phone.
The smartphone truly has arrived.
Hey, Shaun – take it easy on us codgers! I’m 58 and have been using smartphones and PDAs ever since they have existed. Here in the SE Va. it seems everyone of any age is using either a iPhone or Blackberry (although I’m starting to see an awful lot of Android phones recently). But the point is that smartphones today are so versatile and so easy to use that age is no barrier!
I think 50 year olds are at the peak of their mental development. This assessment has nothing to do with the fact that I reached my half-century earlier this year. I was talking to a young man yesterday who has an HTC Desire. I told him that I had just installed Froyo on my Hero. He looked blank. “It’s the latest Android ROM,” I explained. “Right,” he said, still looking blank. My son sends his friends to me if they have tech problems.
So no more age-ism or we may have to launch a DOS attack on your website. Never judge a person by the colour of his hair. Remember Gandalf the Grey: you wouldn’t want to mess with him.
What’s DOS?;)
You youngsters! Don’t you know anything? Denial-of-service. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack
Just spotted the smiley! Brains fine. It’s the eyesight that’s the problem