I have a smartphone (and tablet) specifically because I'm a software developer, actually. I am probably an edge case, but I'd assume that not to be the case in

I have a smartphone (and tablet) specifically because I'm a software developer, actually. I am probably an edge case, but I'd assume that not to be the case in the HN audience: I pretty much never use my smartphone to make phone calls. In fact, I absolutely hate phone calls and do everything I can to avoid them. Having a smartphone is perhaps the best way yet invented to avoid phone calls! As a software developer, I see the future of our field solidly taking place inside the ecosystems being built on smartphone platforms today. The fact that it's a phone or that it goes in your pocket is 100% irrelevant to why smartphones are interesting or useful from the point of view of a software developer. Their OS and ecosystems represent new models of user interaction, new expectations from software as well as new paradigms in data visualization, etc. Smartphones are extremely exciting and they have nothing at all to do with communication with family or phone calls. They are the new computer.