Smartphone Technology Is Far Beyond Where We Imagined It To Be When Cell Phones First Came Out

Today, there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of repeaters (or more) and more cell phone towers everywhere, it's virtually impossible to go anywhere on the planet where you can't get a signal. In areas where signals are weak on normal cell phones you can find a GPS satellite phone that doesn't use the repeaters or cell towers at all- it literally bounces a strong signal out to the satellite in space and uses IT to broker the phone call connection.

Chances of needing a satellite phone for most people is very low and the network has been slowly getting faster and faster to the point of a 4th generation of network updates (where technology is completely updated to a new version, new equipment, and a much faster connection speed through the air). Smart phones are as powerful today as computers were in the year 2000. That's just the lower end ones. The high end smartphone is as powerful if not more powerful than today's latest computer technologies.

Smart Phones Need Smart Users

Modern smart phones are amazing. I remember my reaction on seeing my first. It was a quantum leap away from the its immediate predecessors, and I was reminded of Arthur C. Clark's famous quote "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Here in my hands, was pure Voodoo. Yet as with all things new, human beings have an uncanny ability to assimilate the shock of the new and convert it into the commonplace faster that technology can keep pace, and in no time at all it's all so taken for granted. Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt.

That's a pity, not least because it fools us into seeing the limitations of a technology before we've fully understood its strengths. One of the key dimensions so often overlooked as our option to search out new ways to link existing technologies together, not in a literal sense with plug-ins and apps or WiFi, but in a more human way, with organisation, cross referencing and planning. The internet itself is the most obvious example of a missed opportunity to enhance the value of our cell phones. Leveraging internet technology isn't just about accessing them on our phone's built in browser, it's about joining the dots at a deeper more meaningful level, creating accounts on one that enhance the other. Remember that at its simplest, your phone is a communication tool, and to communicate, you first need to find the person you seek. Finding and being found - or not being found when it's preferable to stay anonymous, is a key talent you should pair with your phone if you want to stay at the cutting edge of what's possible.