Mobile phones are increasingly becoming the main communication tool for private and business use, and 2010 promises to offer users a number of innovations.
Smart phones are better placed than the standard mobile phone to deal with these advances because of their large display screens and speedy Internet connections.
There are already phones on the market using 1 gigahertz chips, says Andy Rubin, who works on Google’s Android platform.
“Soon we’ll have mobile phones with 2Ghz processors, which is more than in a lot of laptops,” he predicts, pointing out that a PC is no longer necessary to access emails, to quickly check the net or to update your Facebook page.
Not surprisingly, more and more manufacturers want a slice of this pie. Microsoft hopes to win its share through its new mobile phone system Windows Phone 7.
The new software for smart phones was presented at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and is much more user-friendly than the older Windows Mobile 6.5. The objective is to simplify the organizing of data that is available to the user on their mobile phone or on the Internet.
Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer announced in Barcelona a whole series of new Windows phones which should be coming on the market in the second half of 2010.
One of the challengers to Microsoft is Google, with its Android platform.
A year or so ago, the G1 and a phone by HTC were the only Android phones on sale, says Rubin. “Now there are 27 models on the market, which are available in 59 countries.”
Others will soon be available for example from Sony Ericsson, which presented Android models at the Mobile World Congress, including the very compact X10 mini and X10 mini pro.
Google is banking on the openness of the system to ensure success. In principle, anyone can write an Android…