smartphone

A smartphone is a mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary basic feature phone. Smartphones and feature phones may be thought of as handheld computers integrated within a mobile telephone, but while most feature phones are able to run applications based on platforms such as Java ME, a smartphone allows the user to install and run more advanced applications based on a specific platform. Smartphones run complete operating system software providing a platform for application developers. A smartphone can be considered as a Personal Pocket Computer (PPC) with mobile phone functions, because these devices are mainly computers, although much smaller than a desktop computer (DC). Additionally a PPC (Personal Pocket Computer) is more personal than a DC (desktop computer).

Growth in demand for advanced mobile devices boasting powerful processors, abundant memory, larger screens, and open operating systems has outpaced the rest of the mobile phone market for several years. According to a study by ComScore, over 45.5 million people in the United States owned smartphones in 2010 and it is the fastest growing segment of the mobile phone market, which comprised 234 million subscribers in the United States. Despite the large increase in smartphone sales in the last few years, smartphone shipments only make up 20% of total handset shipments, as of the first half of 2010.