The evolution of smartphones since 2008
The smart phone is a fairly new invention, at least the smart phone as we know it today. Nevertheless it has gone through a remarkable evolution in just a short time. Even since 2008 there have been some pretty dramatic changes. Not surprisingly this evolution has largely coincided with the decision of the big technology companies to get into the smart phone business.
The biggest difference that you will notice about smart phones of today compared to those of a few years ago is that the current ones are quite a bit smaller. The early smart phones were fairly bulky which made them a bit of hassle to have to carry around. This is less of an issue these days as most of them are now designed to be of a size that fits comfortably into the pocket. At the same time the screen on the phone has gotten bigger as it has become clear that a large screen is a necessity for using a smart phone.
The other big thing that has changed with smart phones over the last three years is that the operating systems for them have improved dramatically. This is in part the result of the natural development that occurs as a product becomes more mature and in part because a lot of big technology companies have gotten involved in developing operating systems. Since 2008 both Google and Microsoft have developed operating systems, this has in turn forced the other makers to improve their systems. The result is that smart phones are a lot smarter than they were a few years ago.
Perhaps the most important change for smart phones over the last few years has been the massive increase in the number of apps that are available for them. In 2008 Apple opened their app store which allowed people to buy apps that were made by third parties for the iPhone. This proved to be a huge success and now all smart phones have an app store. The ability to use third party apps has greatly increased what is available since anybody who has a good idea for an app can now create one which can then be downloaded by anybody with a smart phone.
In general the evolution of smart phones since 2008 has followed the pattern that you would expect that they would. They have gotten smaller and smarter and they can do a lot more things than they could a few years ago. What they have not gotten however is easier to use, if there is one criticism of smart phones it is that all of the new features that have been added have made the phones harder to use. In reality most people have no idea how to use the majority of the features on their smart phone.