{"id":3012,"date":"2011-06-06T16:20:34","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T15:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/mt.php\/2011\/06\/06\/why-the-smartphone-is-no-substitute-for-a-computer"},"modified":"2025-10-07T23:11:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T22:11:04","slug":"why-the-smartphone-is-no-substitute-for-a-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/mt.php\/2011\/06\/06\/why-the-smartphone-is-no-substitute-for-a-computer","title":{"rendered":"Why the smartphone is no substitute for a computer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PictureHow the smartphone is killing the PC | Technology | The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n

Charles Arthur is the Guardian’s tech correspondent (he used to edit the Thursday Technology supplement, but then they ditched it), and this article is about how today’s smartphones are as powerful as computers used to be and are used for a lot of the same functions, to the extent that some people will no longer need a full-size computer. For my part, a smartphone could never take the place of a computer, precisely because it’s too small, has too little storage and is simply too inflexible.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It’s true that phones can do more than many computers could ten, let alone twenty, years ago; their displays are often the same resolution as early VGA monitors or better, they run operating systems that were designed for actual computers, such as Linux, and they can run email clients, social networking clients, web browsers and some games. But that is where the similarity ends. Yes, you may be able to edit a document on a smartphone as well, but you won’t be able to satisfactorily write and lay out a document on one, because the screen is too small, particularly if you are using an on-screen keypad which reduces the size of the screen further. You will need a proper monitor so that you can see your page layout clearly. Even the social networking clients do not offer all of the functionality that is available through the websites.<\/p>\n

The web applications are also quite limited, compared to their desktop equivalents. I have yet to see an email client for Android that is capable of filtering spam, which I use commonly on Thunderbird, my desktop email client. There are mobile versions of many major websites for a reason: because the small screens make it impractical to load the whole site, which is designed for large screens that make multiple columns viable. That is why mobile versions of websites display the main content and very little else. Has anyone tried typing text into the boxes on some websites using a mobile phone? Very often it’s next to impossible, and more so to navigate the box to correct a mistake, because your phone (like mine) does not have a trackball or cursor keys.<\/p>\n

And then comes the biggest reason of all why a smartphone could never take the place of my computers: typing. If you cannot touch-type, this may be less of a problem, but I can (and fast), and I can’t on a mobile device because I have to move one or two fingers from key to key rather than press the key that’s under my finger. It is unsatisfactory for typing anything longer than a text-message or tweet. Sometimes I have emailed from my phone because I am on the move and really have to get something out, but would not want that to be my only way of emailing. Any time I have to compose a long message on my phone, I think of a certain disabled woman who complained of having no way of getting the spinning thoughts out of her head other than by slowly typing messages to people on a tiny PDA (the precursors of smartphones, without the phone; nowadays, the iPod Touch is the best-known of these).<\/p>\n

It is for the same reason that a smartphone cannot replace a computer that the companies which dominate the desktop do not dominate the smartphone. You cannot put Windows on a smartphone and have it work decently (if at all); the products Microsoft call Windows Mobile or Windows Phone are not the same as the Windows systems found on computers: Windows Phone 7 supports Silverlight and XNA, while Windows 7 supports a whole host of other programming methods. Attempts have been made to port desktop Linux platforms to small mobile devices, but they have not been all that successful, hence the need for Android, a Linux user environment which is tailored for phones and small tablets. It is more interesting that the earlier PDA environments have died out as smartphones have become popular, such as Pocket PC and Palm OS, and that some of the dominant players have failed to prosper in the smartphone world.<\/p>\n

However sophisticated smartphones get, their form factor will always get in the way of doing the things a computer does. They will always be jacks of all trades and masters of none: you will be able to take photos and organise them into collections, but serious photography and editing will require a computer (and a decent camera). You can write short messages, but it is too frustratingly slow to write long ones unless you have no choice. You might even be able to watch films, but the video quality will never match that of a proper monitor or a TV. Worst of all, many smartphone users complain that they are less good as phones than older mobile phones, that the phone software is over-complicated, bug-ridden or seems like an afterthought (this was certainly the case on my old HTC). Smartphones might reduce the time we spend at a computer, but they can never replace them entirely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How the smartphone is killing the PC | Technology | The Guardian Charles Arthur is the Guardian’s tech correspondent (he used to edit the Thursday Technology supplement, but then they ditched it), and this...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p17bgV-MA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41430,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012\/revisions\/41430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogistan.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}