Okay Geek Farm
The Top Five Greatest Innovations in Mobile Technology
Darryl Cobb
Last week or so we did the worst fads that was ever inflicting on us, the mobile consumer. Well, I’m here to break down the 5 greatest innovations to shape our mobile world today. Let me get the easy things out of the way to make this article interesting.
Please Note: I will purposely omit the following — App stores, Any mobile OSs, Miniaturization and Pre-paid Plans - With those out of the way, let’s see what makes my list!
5. Capacitive Touchscreens - Nominated by The Cult of Steve Jobs
This one’s for Steve Jobs. From an Android Fanboy to you Apple Fanboys, I want to send a big thank you for brining capacitive touchscreens to the forefront. Even though Jobs and the Cupertino Crew weren’t the first to the party with this, that belongs to LG’s Prada phone, they made it popular. It was the iPhone that ushered in a new era to replace stylus with our fingers to navigate our devices. And further more, I always seemed to lose them things and ruin my screen by resorting to my fingers anyway. So here’s to the capacitive revolution!
4. The Camera Phone - Nominated by People’s Republic of Exposing Themselves
This was probably one of the unsung heroes of mobile phones, period. Invented around 1997 according to USATODAY, it has become an intricate part of our daily lives. Where would sites like Failblog.org, Facebook, Myspace or Flickr be without the cellphone camera? I mean, what would life be without the dirty bathroom photo shoots, the nude B-list celebrity leaks and my favorite, the drunken blackmail candids. Yes we all owe a lot to the camera phone folks. So here’s to the cellphone camera, ruining people’s reputation and self-esteem for the last 13 years!
3. Flash Memory - Nominated by Those 2 Cool to Carry a USB Sticks
Flash memory, whether embedded or used with a micro SD card, this definitely has solidified it’s spot on the list. Think about this. How would you store all of those fart apps, leaked rap albums, videos and podcasts? Think about it…
2. Texting - Nominated by The Army of Manicured Thumbs & Overpriced Men’s Wearhouse Suits
Texting, email and instant messaging are all going under this category. Nothing has been so popular, so loathed, loved and valuable as this to the masses. So much so, it gave birth to slide out physical keyboards in order to maximize it’s usefulness. Many teens and those in their early 20s live by texting, to the point they don’t even talk. And let’s not even talk about doing business and not having a Blackberry (yikes!). You’re just not taken seriously, ask P.Diddy. BBMs, ICQ, AIM, Google Talk even down to Fbook’s chat client has all benefited from the text revolution.
1. Data… Glorious Data - Nominated by Facebook Fiends and Trending Topic Tyrants
Whether it’s streaming video, browsing the web or even doing any one of the numerous forms of texting, data remains paramount. It is the life blood that keeps the heart of mobile computing pumping. Even as talk time becomes cheap, cellphone carriers are seeing data as a premium. Without data, none of the fun things we do without our phones would really matter. We’d still be content with our Motorola RAZRs and Nokia 5160s.
Wrap Up
Well that’s the list this week. I tried to avoid this list being predictable and I also wanted this list to spark debate, argument and just have people reflect the wonderful engineering that you drop, sleep on and just outright treat badly. Yes, I’m guilty of it too. We are in a time where innovation and engineering is at an all time high and price is at a very affordable point. So rejoice and I’ll look forward to your comments.
