Over the last few years it has become increasingly apparent that the mobile phone and in particular the smart phone has gained in prominence not only as a communication device but also as a multi-function tool that facilitates our ability to complete our everyday tasks efficiently. In some cases enabling us to do things that weren't possible in recent memory. This trend is not an isolated instance but rather part of a much larger wave that has every indication of growing and accelerating the more we become comfortable and reliant on being always connected to the Internet and each other.
Five years ago the world was accessing the Internet and staying connected to each other primarily through their personal computers. With the desire to be more mobile and the speed increases and advances in smaller and smaller hardware the desktop gave way to the laptop for many people and it sufficed. In present day the smart phone has increased in great strides in terms of computational power, storage capacity, interface methods, and screen size and resolution. This in combination with an always on 3/4g connection to the internet and the mobile phone is truly becoming or has already supplanted the main computer system for many.
This has come about by no small part from the iPhone and its associated app store, which greatly expands the perception of what a mobile phone is capable of. Granted these concepts that Apple has brought about have existed in some prior form but they do deserve the credit of popularizing it to the masses which opened the door for competitors such as Google to attempt and attract more people to the idea of mobile computing with their Android operating system. Microsoft also is taking their Windows Phone 7 in a new direction which again takes advantage of a ripe market that is eager to have the best. Apple, RIM, Microsoft and Google all are working frantically to snatch up those on the fence with the assurance that their platform is that mythical "best".
For certain though with this level of competition and the degree of quality we are already seeing in shipping products; the mobile computing platform will be and is the battlefield to watch going forward.
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