My friend Jeff Atwood recently wrote, in response to this post by Joey deVilla, that netbooks are the future:
If the internet is the ultimate force of democratization in the world, then netbooks are the instrument by which that democracy will be achieved[…]
I don’t care how “smart” your smartphone is, it will never escape those corporate shackles. Smartphones are simply not free enough to deliver the type of democratic transformation that netbooks — mobile PCs cheap enough and fast enough and good enough for everyone to afford — absolutely will.
I get where Jeff is coming from. Cell carriers suck, nobody likes locked down phone hardware, and it’s good for the world when computers get small and cheap.
However, in spite of their shortcomings, Smartphones have already done more to empower users and fight tyranny than netbooks ever could.
In authoritarian countries phones are how people organize dissent, document police abuse, and get the word out about their plight.
In undeveloped countries phones supercharge local economies without the need for expensive (and vulnerable) wired networks:
To the astonishment of the industry, people living on a few dollars a day have proven avid phone users, and in many parts of the world cellular airtime has become a de facto currency. The reason is simple: A mobile phone can dramatically improve living standards by saving wasted trips, providing information about crop prices, summoning medical help, and even serving as a conduit to banking services. “The cell phone is the single most transformative technology for development,” says Columbia University economist and emerging markets expert Jeffrey Sachs.
— Businessweek, “Upwardly Mobile In Africa“
Maybe instead of OLPC the world needs One iPhone Per Child.
Meanwhile in the developed world, Smartphones have essentially given us all superpowers that we will never willingly give up. Have you noticed that your friends don’t need to ask for directions anymore? Or that when two iPhones users get together they almost instantly start talking about their favorite apps?: “OMG, you should totally download that, it’s awesome!”
Smartphones have also upended the software world. Overnight everyone wanted to build iPhone games and apps, I believe because the iPhone offered exciting new ways of using technology. Let’s face it, the point and click paradigm is tired. Who wouldn’t want to build fun new apps combining multitouch, accelerometers, GPS, and augmented reality?
On a personal level, my iPhone has completely transformed my life: how I interact with friends, how I interact with cities, how I make art, how I plan my fun, how I wait in line at the grocery store, everything. I can’t leave home without it, much less live without it, while netbooks are merely laptops that fit better on airplane tray tables.