Focus On The Phone

Our pocket computers have taken the place of a great deal of everyday innovations.

- Ernst Wittmann

Mobile phones were originally created to enable us to take and make phone calls on the go. Today, voice calls comprise a small part of the functionality that most of us use on our smartphones. More and more people don’t even answer their mobile phones unless it’s someone they know but rely on their mobile device for just about everything else.

Recent research from the World Economic Forum (WEF) paints a picture of how deeply embedded smartphones are in our day-to-day routines. The survey of 8,000 people from eight countries found that 50% of respondents are now more concerned about forgetting their phone than their wallet and only 14% of people still use smartphones purely for calls and messaging.

The majority of respondents consider their smartphone a necessity, to be used for things like checking the local news and weather, and more than a third of respondents consider their smartphone their ‘life’. Smartphones have become the go-to device for so many things we do each day, taking the place of essentials like business cards, watches, alarm clocks, newspapers, calendars and more in our lives.

Digital cameras

We’ve come a long way since the two-megapixel phone cameras of the feature phones of the mid-2000s. Today, it’s not unusual to find eight or even 12-megapixel cameras in a moderately-priced smartphone, alongside advanced features such as HDR and wide-angle. The quality is good enough for most casual snappers, especially given that most photos are taken to be shared on social media.