Why is iPhone not considered a smartphone?

[gTen]

Originally Posted by NIKKG

Why do people on this site state the iPhone is not a “real smartphone” but WinMo, Android supposedly are?

With my Jailbroken Iphone 4, I can:

1. Tether through wifi and use it as a wifi hotspot free

2. Customize the lock screen with weather, calendars etc.
3. Run all sorts of great apps and games and can multitask
4. There are all sorts of legal and illegal apps and hacks
5. Use GPS, Music Player, Bluetooth, Wifi, 3G
6. Take pictures and Hi-Def videos and have a built in flash
7. Browse web sites just as fast and good as on my laptop
8. Built in email and calendar syncs with my outlook at work
9. On top of all that, it still makes phone calls and text messages, plus I get great ATT service.

To me, this is not only a smartphone, its like a laptop replacement. My laptop just collects dust now, I don’t see what’s the point of turning on a laptop when I can do almost everything right on my iphone with that beautiful hi-def screen.

But can it solve a rubrics cube or launch a rocket into space? O.o lol


Let me kinda explain what happened....originally we had 3 definitions...

a dumb phone (all the general phones)
smartphone (a phone like a blackberry or a winmo phone with no touch screen)
pocketpc (winmo, symbian, palm and etc with a touch screen)

Then came the evil deranged man with an apple and released horror and agony upon the world..err..I mean iphone was released which emphasized staying away from pcs and having a cool phone...

This opened a new "definition" for stuff...pocketpc went into oblivion and left us with 2 meanings...but how the meanings are interpreted depends on the individual..the most common being these 2:

A) a phone that allows you to perform advanced tasks and has apps
Smartphone: winmo,android,iphone, blackberry,webos
Dumb phone: pretty much everything else

B) a phone that is not locked down and allows customization and tinkering with the OS.
Smartphone: winmo,android
Dumb phone: iphone, Instinct, blackberry

(and yes WebOS was left out cause it really didn't have life in it yet to judge..for now I guess most are ok with calling it a smartphone mostly n premises that palm always made pocketpcs/smartphones)

So yeah..now the meanings are kinds complicated...in general A is used by the carriers and general pubic..and B is used by the community with the exception of the iphone community of course.

[orangekid]

Originally Posted by gTen

B) a phone that is not locked down and allows customization and tinkering with the OS.
Smartphone: winmo,android
Dumb phone: iphone, Instinct, blackberry

that's a pretty subjective defintion and categorization. on an iPhone you can change the wallpaper, theme it in thousands of ways, change the OS sounds, tether, carrier unlock and "customize and tinker with the OS" in so many ways.

The only difference really is that on an iPhone you can't flash a new SPL and hence cannot really flash custom ROMs. So if you want to change the definition of smartphone to "can flash custom SPL or custom recovery and hence flash completely customized ROMs instead of just hacking the existing firmware to enable root access and modify the OS by fooling the bootloader into thinking you are actually flashing a shipped firmware version" then I guess you could categorize the iPhone outside of the other 2.

But to compare it an Instinct and a Blackberry is willful disinfo IMO

[gTen]

Originally Posted by orangekid

that's a pretty subjective defintion and categorization. on an iPhone you can change the wallpaper, theme it in thousands of ways, change the OS sounds, tether, carrier unlock and "customize and tinker with the OS" in so many ways.

The only difference really is that on an iPhone you can't flash a new SPL and hence cannot really flash custom ROMs. So if you want to change the definition of smartphone to "can flash custom SPL or custom recovery and hence flash completely customized ROMs instead of just hacking the existing firmware to enable root access and modify the OS by fooling the bootloader into thinking you are actually flashing a shipped firmware version" then I guess you could categorize the iPhone outside of the other 2.

But to compare it an Instinct and a Blackberry is willful disinfo IMO

Hey I'm not the one who made this up..this is from what I gather from what people are considering....the largest amount of the people considers A..B is what most of the community most likely considers...

We both know if it were up to me I'd place the iPhone right besides the Jitterbug

[orangekid]

Originally Posted by gTen

Hey I'm not the one who made this up..this is from what I gather from what people are considering....the largest amount of the people considers A..B is what most of the community most likely considers...

We both know if it were up to me I'd place the iPhone right besides the Jitterbug

well I just mean that some people have a tendency to have this "everyone likes the iPhone, so therefore I hate it because it's cool to go against the status quo" and then justify that by saying "yeah but you can't flash CM RC 3 on an iPhone!!"

I actually much prefer Android over iOS and lately I've been preferring WinMo over Android because of Emulation and Wii remote compatibility.

But it is what it is nomsayin