Smartphones: Hardware or software?

Feature additions have been the driving force of the mobile phone industry since its origins. GPRS, then EDGE, then 3G have been joined by HSDPA (or 3G+), which guarantees comfortable web browsing speeds. Digital cameras are everywhere, GPS has become commonplace and the electronic diary is a basic necessity. Extreme finesse, touch screens, long-lasting batteries... the hardware features of smartphones have all been brought into line with each other. We had to look elsewhere for the difference.

Software, and above all the operating system (or OS), has long remained a secondary element. So they stagnated within fairly narrow limits, until a new player came along with fresh ideas. When Apple launched the iPhone, the revolution took place in terms of usage. Apple pre-empted this market. Then Google entered the fray with Android, which is free and open source, so can be modified at will. Both brands rely on applications, programmes that can be downloaded to the handset, often free, often practical, and always available to the user.

Engineering culture

Traditionally, these programmes have been paid for, expensive and rare on existing platforms. Now all these platforms are suffering commercially. The market leader, Nokia, has stuck to its own solutions without opening up to public expectations. Sony Ericsson's premium strategy has been a failure, while Motorola is in the doldrums and Palm has just fallen back. Samsung and LG are doing well, delivering a large number of new products every quarter. Blackberry is broadening its target market by taking advantage of its status as a symbol for businesses, but with little success outside its natural American market. As for Windows Mobile, it has been slow to evolve. Version 7 of the OS has been put off for a long time, and 6.5, which was supposed to tide the market over, ended up being little more than a Band-Aid.

But the heavyweights of the sector have not said their last word. A wave of ambitious new products is redefining the balance of power. In the end, it was Apple's smartphone that came out on top. Non-existent in 2007, it is now number three, with a single model accounting for 14.4 % of the global phone market in 2009 (source: Gartner). And HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and even Samsung are turning to Android, packed with innovations and benefiting from the Google ecosystem (search engine, maps, etc). Both are racing to download applications, a sign of the intensity of use of the device and a source of package consumption, and therefore an indicator of strength with operators.

So it seems that software is driving the smartphone market. That would be forgetting that the best OS is nothing if the hardware doesn't keep up, and vice versa. The iPhone, for example, owes much of its success to its touch screen, which depends on software that recognises finger touches on the virtual keyboard. In contrast, Toshiba's TG01 is a powerful machine, with a huge screen and a processor that could power a PC. But its screen doesn't keep up. Is this because of Windows Mobile? Mens sana in corpore sano, the adage applies to man and machine alike.