What can we do with a smartphone?

There are more smartphones than desktop computers since 2010 and knowing that they have capabilities superior to those of computers 10 years ago, but the screen size, a programmer must consider it as the privileged platform of development , nowadays.

A mobile phone is considered as smart when it can add applications, turning it into a computer, and connect to the Web.
The phone function is incidental to such a device that is a a kind of assistant with multiple capabilities.

We can not list all web applications and all games and even less again the assistants of all kinds, but it is interesting to look at applications specific to mobiles that only work with such a device.

Examples of features

Here are some example of the amazing possibilities of the most sophisticated smartphones.

• iPhone has innovated with the Siri voice interface that allows to ask questions such as the address of a restaurant verbally and also get a voice response. Galaxy S3 from Samsung has the same function.
• Galaxy S3 can transfer a file from a device to another by putting them side by side.
• This device has face recognition. It can give a name to someone on a photo.
• Simply place the device against your ear so that it automatically dials a number.
• WiFi Direct links together several devices without operator.
• Third-party software add augmented reality: informations are displayed on the places taken by the camera.
• More traditional functions such as cameras, voice recorder, taking notes, viewing HD movies become common.
• The Galaxy Note has a stylus and a pattern recognition software.
• The Galaxy Beam has a pico projector to project images to see in group.
• With a touch screen computer and any smartphone, and of course the right software, you can transfer texts and images from one device to another by a movement of the fingers, as shown in the video at right.

Features depend on the operating system

iOS is probably the easiest to use. Google's Android has the advantage of the opening. As webOS it is open source, and unlike the iPhone application store is open to all development technology. Tizen is another Linux-based alternative is has HTML 5 apps like webOS.

The list of all mobile OS and how to program them is given in the article Programming for mobiles.

See also charts comparing sales of smartphones by operating system.

More

• Comparison of smartphones.
• Layar, augmented reality. Video. Works on multiple OSes.