Make Apps, Not Hardware

By Sriram V IyerThis is a guest article by our mobile expert Sriram V. Iyer, Co-founder, United Mobile Apps (check out their story by clicking here). Do follow Sriram on Twitter.

Americans opposed the Vietnam war by saying ‘Make Love, Not War’ – I thought we could save the environment and show our love to Mother Earth, by calling for ‘Make Apps, Not Hardware’

If we look carefully, at the world around us, we can observe that mobile phones are slowly replacing some of the devices / hardware that we thought were indispensable.

Alarm ClockWatches had alarms, there were specialized bedside clocks that had alarms, there were even clock radios that had fancy lit up displays and even radio on them! Bose even had an expensive CD / Radio player which doubled up as clock radio. When I used to travel, I always used to carry my trusted alarm clock to nudge me out of the bed. But, now, at home or travel, everyone just take their mobile phones that they carry with them any way!

CameraThey say that the best camera is one that you can use when required… That way, the cell phone cameras are always the handy ones, because they are with you always!

The cameras in phones come as fancy as the regular ones with special effects, zoom even 3D!

Navigation Systems

Consider a device that has GPS capabilities, great memory to store maps, has the capability to speak and has great display – A mobile phone can just couple as a navigation device.

MP3 Player

A phone has great multimedia capabilities that makes it a great mp3 / personal infotainment device. This was the main reason for Apple to launch an iPhone, which was an iPod + Phone.A mobile phone, is not a voice only device of the yore. It is a GREAT generic computing platform, augmented with intelligent hardware – GPS, accelerometer, audio / video DSPs, camera and more. All that is required is innovative out of the box thinking to replace devices around. Take a hard look at TV, DVD player, set top boxes and think how you can replace them. (Just don’t look hard at the cell phone :-P )

Read Sriram’s earlier columns by clicking here.

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