> Everyone is used to having one of these things that they carry around in their pocket, and scarcely anyone really needs any other general-purpose computing de

> Everyone is used to having one of these things that they carry around in their pocket, and scarcely anyone really needs any other general-purpose computing device. Unless they want to read something, or type more than a paragraph, or do anything collaborative. Because it still feels a niche role, not a general computing one, the ability to connect to service providers is the dominating characteristic. If anything, I see "phone" moving to be a description of service, and devices are just named device-specific things. People have already started dropping the "smart" part and just assume that a "phone" at LEAST can call. I now distinguish between "phones", "flip phones", and "land lines". If I don't need to talk, why not just get an ipod and a laptop? Each device is much better when giving up the domain of the other.