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Why is it still called a phone?

thaden0 said:
Not exactly true.. atleast for the music. A phone does music just as good as any mp3 player. Its not like these things are replacing an orchastra.. there replacing MP3 players. And the iPhone and the IPod have almost identical hardware and software. So, Why are we not calling them Mp3 Phones?
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you could say the same for any of those - it's not replacing a dslr, it's replacing a pocket shooter; it's not replacing a computer, it's replacing a pda etc.

point is, they are portable versions of something not so portable
just because there are portable devices for the same thing, doesn't make it any less valid
 
mrqs said:
you could say the same for any of those - it's not replacing a dslr, it's replacing a pocket shooter; it's not replacing a computer, it's replacing a pda etc.

point is, they are portable versions of something not so portable
just because there are portable devices for the same thing, doesn't make it any less valid
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Well then, to further expanding on this.. there not replacing land line phones. My land line phone is cheaper and clearer.. it also is louder and more public so my family can answer it if I am not availble. Which puts the phone is exactly the same catagory as the rest of the devices. It's a portable version of something not portable. with no reason for the "phone" aspect of its use to be singled out.

I am of course just being devils advocate here.. but there really is know reason to call them phones except that its what people call them.. and that means that is what it is. People decide the names of things by calling things that, no logic or reason required. ie. *** is not a stack of odd shaped bundles of woods nor homosexuals.. its harley davidson riders.
 
thaden0 said:
Well then, to further expanding on this.. there not replacing land line phones. My land line phone is cheaper and clearer.. it also is louder and more public so my family can answer it if I am not availble. Which puts the phone is exactly the same catagory as the rest of the devices. It's a portable version of something not portable. with no reason for the "phone" aspect of its use to be singled out.
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i left out one important thing from my last post:
mrqs said:
but there isn't a device that does phone calls significantly better
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a landline may be slightly clearer, but these days there's hardly a difference in voice quality
a cell phone is as public as you wish to make it; why couldn't your family answer it?

all the other functions have significantly better counterparts

of course we call these devices phones, because that's what they evolved from - they didn't use to be anything more and the name stuck even after they became more
but i do think there's still more logic in the name than that
 
The 'smartphone' evolved from the PDA. First came palm then the treo.

A landline is much louder. If someone calls, I can hear the message from across the house. It is always connected to power so you don't have to worry about the battery.
The buttons are designed for easy phone use: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,#,* with the alphabet code on the numbers. Smartphones, even ones with physical keys, don't have this button layout. They have a dialer but it just another app.
 
ari-free said:
A landline is much louder. If someone calls, I can hear the message from across the house.
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and that's a good thing?

ari-free said:
It is always connected to power so you don't have to worry about the battery.
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as can a smartphone, if you will

ari-free said:
The buttons are designed for easy phone use: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,#,* with the alphabet code on the numbers. Smartphones, even ones with physical keys, don't have this button layout.
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tons of smartphones have that layout
 
mrqs said:
and that's a good thing?
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of course. If my sister and her kids call us, everyone else in my house can hear what they have to say.

as can a smartphone, if you will
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Sure, if you don't mind having the handset plugged in. But with a landline, I can take the cordless handset to another room

tons of smartphones have that layout
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lumigon will but that isn't exactly tons. Many smartphones have very few buttons and it takes extra steps to get to the dialer app.
 
If Dell has their way we'll soon be calling our personal communication devices "Mini-Tablets" with phone capability.

See Dell Streak.......

Just my 2 cents.
 
Isthmus said:
I say we just go full geek and call them Tricorders. :D
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chart
 
ari-free said:
of course. If my sister and her kids call us, everyone else in my house can hear what they have to say.
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and if your lover* calls you, your wife and everyone else in the house can hear what they have to say...
obviously you're exaggerating with the loudness, but my point is, it's not inherently a good thing
plus all smartphones that i know of have a speaker function

ari-free said:
Sure, if you don't mind having the handset plugged in. But with a landline, I can take the cordless handset to another room
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when someone calls, you can't unplug your handset?

ari-free said:
lumigon will but that isn't exactly tons. Many smartphones have very few buttons and it takes extra steps to get to the dialer app.
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so i guess you've never heard of symbian - market leader ever since smartphones existed
like half of symbian phones have physical numeric keys


*not saying your cheating or anything, just a hypothetical example
 
mrqs said:
and if your lover* calls you, your wife and everyone else in the house can hear what they have to say...
obviously you're exaggerating with the loudness, but my point is, it's not inherently a good thing
plus all smartphones that i know of have a speaker function
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Private convos go to the personal cell phone. The home phone is for anyone who lives in the house. So if the refrigerator repair guy calls to schedule an appointment and you're in the shower, your wife can pick it up. You may be able to set it for certain people depending how smart your phone is but bottom line is, the speaker on the landline will always be stronger because the phone is bigger.


when someone calls, you can't unplug your handset?

The point I was trying to get is that you can always depend on the phone having power at all times. If you call someone on his cell phone, he might not answer it because he forgot to recharge his battery.
If the phone is for a business, it is crucial. If you need microsoft customer service, you don't call Mr Joe X's (who works there) cell number. You call 'microsoft's service dept' and someone (could be anyone in the office) hears the call and picks it up. And they can't afford a situation where someone 'forgot' to recharge the battery.

so i guess you've never heard of symbian - market leader ever since smartphones existed
like half of symbian phones have physical numeric keys

yes, but people still call treos, iphones, droids, etc 'smartphones' even though they don't have easy phone access.

*not saying your cheating or anything, just a hypothetical example
 
Maybe there was a time when the obvious physical features of the device indicated that it's a phone, such as the dedicated number keys for dialing, and everything else was added onto it, like the camera part secondarily.

But look at the iphone or the Captivate today: the obvious physical features promote a user interface for apps and web browsing, with the dialer nowhere to be seen (it's just one of the apps).

We're no longer talking about a phone with added features, but rather the phone itself being merely one of the features.

Side note: if you think about it, texting is really enhanced paging (as in pager). A cell phone capable of texting is the merger of a phone with a pager, but the pager feature, even though it's often a prominent one, with dedicated keyboards that often obscure the dialer itself, has been forgotten. People just call it a phone.
 
I refer to my Captivate as a PC... it's a really really personal computer. And it is a computer, despite not being all that similar to a desktop computer, which is what most people consider a "computer". I can email, text, make/receive calls, browse the web from both devices, from my desktop or from my pocket. There are specialized characteristics and "apps" that are better suited for each device but they're both computers. They both are used for a variety of different productivity goals, whether for work or play.

Ok.. i don't realy call it a PC because that would cause mass confusion. But that's what it really is. I'm posting this from my PC right now..
 
I always liked the term PDA (personal data assistant). It's a personal assistant (because it can be always with you) and you are dealing with data, whether that's camera data or gps data or computing data. Calling it a PDAphone tells you that it can also be used as a phone and over 3G.
 
Wait so are you telling me my Camera that has GPS, MP3 Player, Web Browsing, Email, Instant messaging, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, Ebooks, Playstation and other games can also make phone calls. This is just amazing.
 
Weazol said:
Wait so are you telling me my Camera that has GPS, MP3 Player, Web Browsing, Email, Instant messaging, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, Ebooks, Playstation and other games can also make phone calls. This is just amazing.
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LOL,
guess what! people can also leave you voice messages if you dont answer it that you can listen to later !

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I like the term PDA (Personal Data Assistant), as someone already said above.
Personal: every single person has their own.
Data: phone, internet, calender, email ect. (all of these are types of data)
Assistant: helps you with all this data :cool:
 
The PF Chang's restaurant website refers to it as a "mobile device".

I guess it will forever be called a phone. It's kind of like when people say "hang up". When was the last time you actually literally "hung up" the phone?? It's called "disconnect" really.
 
well companies have been calling them mobile devices and disconnect for a long time. i think they are public terms to say it a "phone" and "hang up".
i expect like all language it will evolve eventually. when was the term "cool" coined? im too young to remember when things were "Hip" instead.
culture will change these terms as well.
 
Weazol said:
Wait so are you telling me my Camera that has GPS, MP3 Player, Web Browsing, Email, Instant messaging, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, Ebooks, Playstation and other games can also make phone calls. This is just amazing.
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You can run Playstation games on it? I didn't think it would be that powerful...
 
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