Most People Don’t Know What Smartphones Are
Carolyn Schuk is not happy that the mainstream press is amazed that women like smartphones. Her contention is that women buy and use smartphones too!
She’s right. Here’s the secret, though: outside of the small percentage of people that either work for a mobile phone manufacturer, operator, retailer, or otherwise follow the industry, most people don’t know what a smartphone is. If you say the term smartphone, they look at you like you’re from Jupiter. They should. It’s a silly term.
What people do know is what they want from a phone, or think would be cool. 5 years ago, I purchased a Nokia 3650 from AT&T and brought it home. My wife saw the phone and thought it might be cool to have a phone like that, so I bought her one. It took pictures and had the round keypad. It could take movies and send them via MMS. Beyond that, my wife had no clue it was a smartphone–or cared.
In the real world, I see both men and women with devices that could be classified as Smartphones. Just this afternoon, I saw a lady in Costco putting a Palm Centro in her purse. For all I know, she may have purchased it because it had a QWERTY keyboard and she wanted to be able to send text messages as opposed to running random applications downloaded from the Internet. Or maybe she got it free with a 2 year agreement.
Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter. Normal people buy phones they can afford with the functionality they desire. If it happens to be a smartphone, they won’t even know it. Or care. It’s a phone. Women have them too. Get over it.
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Tags: nokia, smartphones Fnord
Comment by spg
it seems like the common term at least among business people is ‘blackberry’ this very often describes devices from companies other than RIM. many people it seems do not even know that ‘blackberry’ is a brand at all. they simply know it as a term for any oversized phone/email device.
Comment by PhoneBoy
Which, of course, is my point @spg. People don’t know what a Smartphone is, let alone a particular brand of Smartphone.
Comment by Sachendra Yadav
Most people don’t know what a smartphone means because there’s no tier that you can associate it with. Back in 2001, “Smartphone” was a term coined by marketers to differentiate their PDA-cum-Phone from the rest of pack… a smarter phone if you will.. I’ve covered this in detail on my blog:
http://sachendra.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/what-does-smartphone-mean-to-you/
Comment by Carolyn Schuk, The VoIP Princess
I’m not actually mad — really, truly:) I’m just astonished that anyone could be surprised that women in 2008 like technology. I got my first job in technology 30 years ago — and I was by no means the first woman in the New York State Electric and Gas IT department.
Maybe it will be clearer if I share a personal story. About 10 years ago I was with about two dozen mothers of young children at a going-away party for a friend who was moving. When someone suggested that we all get together for something else in a few weeks, about half of the women whipped out their PDAs to check their calendars. Juggling all the things that modern Moms have to, you just need some “smarts.”
Comment by PhoneBoy
@carolyn I think women don’t mind technology, but they all don’t use it in the same way a lot of guys do: it’s a tool, to be used at the appropriate time, not an exercise in one-upmanship.
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Comment by ARJWright
Nice piece, and I totally agree. most shouldn’t care about things like operating systems, or industry specific terms. they should and do care about what works. From there, its brand recognition. And its not just women that identify these properties, but males as well. The key for manufacturers is to make products that fit the niche, but better define the needs and innovations of that niche. From there, all types of fun can be had.
Comment by PhoneBoy
@arjwright Precisely. At some level, particularly if applications are one of your selling points, one DOES care about the operating system. I’d love to see Nokia adopt a logo similar to the Windows logo that identifies application compatibility. That being said, it’s a SMALL percentage of people that would care about it.