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by Michael Tan, Singapore

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The most significant thing this week: A new genre of phones defined--the App Phone

Nov 6, 2009 11:31

I've never called the iPhone or Android phone a smartphone.

Somehow, the smartphone was reserved for phones which were much more limited in capability. My first smartphone was the Sony Ericsson R380, followed by the P800, M600, and Nokia 9500 Communicator. These were phones based on extensions to previous operating systems for normal dumb phones.

Intuitively, it just didn't seem right for the term "smartphone" to apply to powerful phones like the iPhone with an application platform which anybody could develop for. But since there are only three major ones--the iPhone, the Android phone and the Palm Pre platform--I didn't feel the need to invent or use any term. Anyway, I am just a little guy, so whatever term I would have come up with would not be authoritative enough or gain universal appeal.

The New York Times, the best newspaper in the world, and David Pogue, the best tech writer in the best newspaper in the world, have borrowed and legitimized a new term: The App Phone. Here is the seminal article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/technology/personaltech/05pogue.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss.

Read it. It's a historic article. It's a defining article. To me, an App Phone is defined thus: "A small form factor communications device with a phone, fast Internet communications, multiple physical sensors including orientation and location, and multimedia content playback and recording capability, running with a sufficiently powerful processor on an operating system with a well-received and massively adopted programming interface in its software platform."

This clarifies a LOT of things. Not least of which Nokia, the world's largest handset manufacturer, does NOT have an App Phone. Nor does BlackBerry. And the Palm Pre platform will soon fall out of the category unless it revamps its programming interface.

Pogue made history with his article, and signals the arrival of a strategic inflection point (Andy Grove) which Nokia and BlackBerry faces. At the crossroads, take the right path to greater success, or the wrong path for a quick decline (and share the same grave as Smith Corona typewriters).

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About Michael Tan

Michael Tan is lucky enough not to have to choose between his job and his passion. He is the responsible for all aspects of developing new businesses and sourcing new productlines for a regional IT distribution company. He also oversees the company's legal affairs as General Counsel. In real life, he is a technology enthusiast, from both the fun and business viewpoint. The only choices he has to make are whether to play with his astro telescopes, his PC games, his Wii console, hit the track, tweak his car, or refine his biofilters, post his blogs, research for a new digicam, scour every forum to feed his habit further, play with his son… You can reach Michael at michaeltanyk@gmail.com ALL BLOGPOSTS ONLY REFLECT MICHAEL'S OPINIONS AND NOBODY ELSES'.