bob wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 23:36:50 on Wed, 24 Jul
2019, bob remarked:
Recliner wrote:
Clank wrote:
Basil Jet Wrote in message:
Thanks for that, but it doesn't change the fact that earphones with a
microphone in the cable *are* a mobile phone accessory.

I use mine with my laptop for Skype/Teams calls and the like as
often as I use them with my phone. (Actually, if it's the
microphone that is suddenly important, far more - I make voice
calls on my phone once in a blue moon.)

Yes, it's probably time to resurrect the old, prematurely-coined, PDA term
for what we still call phones.

The modern smart phone rolls the functions of PDA, mobile phone and
personal music player together into a single device, onto which is added
internet data connectivity. If you go back and look at the presentation
where Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone he makes a big play on this
bringing together of multiple previous category of devices into a single
thing.

If anything, the iPhone is an iPod-Touch with a phone added.

It is, but the iPod touch didn’t exist at that point. The iPhone and iPod
Touch were released together, and it was pretty apparent that they were
essentially the same device just with/without the GSM capability.

That the term phone has been the one that won out of the various
elements that went into what a modern phone does is something of an
accident of history.

See also the way my Cybershot (being discussed in another subthread) is
something I've always described as a camera with a phone on the back,
rather than the other way round.

Indeed. I suspect the reason is that all the tech gossip around 2006-2007
was around the “Apple will make a phone” with ideas of an iPod click-wheel
phone that meant iPhone, and hence the association with phones was the name
that defined the convergence of PDA, camera, music player, mobile web
browser and mobile phone.

Smartphones existed before the iPhone. I had 2 HP smartphones, each
running a version of Windows Mobile.

It meant that I only needed to carry one device, rather than a PDA and
separate mobile phone.

The first HP one was great (although much thicker than an iPhone) until it
died suddenly, but the second one, with a slide-out mini keyboard, which
looked great on paper, was c**p. That was when I switched to the iPhone.
--
Jeremy Double