A random tweet returns me to a puzzle I’ve been chewing on for some time now: what do I call a damn smartphone? Really…like my iPhone…it’s not merely a phone anymore. In fact the phone part of it is the least used functionality. So I’ve been trying to think of a generic term for…whatever the heck these things are now. Sure, they evolved from cell phones. But now…

What really got me pondering this question was I got an app a few weeks ago that turns it into a flashlight or a magnifying glass (er…it’s called “Over 40″…sigh…). It uses the built in camera flash for the flashlight part, and the camera itself for the magnifying glass part. WTF? So now what was a telephone is something that can morph into a flashlight or a magnifying glass when needed. I don’t recall reading any science-fiction when I was growing up that had phones in it that turned into magnifying glasses for tired old eyes.   Video phones yes.   But a magnifying glass?   A flashlight?   A compass?   There’s a compass app. WTF???

So once again I start pondering the thing. Smart it is, yes, but phone is only a small part now of what it is.   In my mind, the word Smartphone doesn’t really cut it anymore.   You little dickens…what did you grow up to be? It’s a telephone. It’s a music player. I can read and send email with it. It’s a radio. I can play local stations or stations anywhere else in the world. It’s a news reader. It gives me weather reports. I can get the temperature outside or in Key West. I can call up a   weather radar view and see the storms nearby and watch their motion before they get to where I am. It an atlas whose maps are always up to date. It can tell me where the nearest restaurant is, the nearest motel.   It can tell me what the traffic is like where I’m headed. It’s a calculator. It’s a camera. It plays videos. It records videos. It’s a pocket dictionary and thesaurus. It’s a compass. It’s a calendar. It’s my appointment book. It’s my todo list. It’s a flashlight. It’s a magnifying glass. It’s a notepad. I can read books with it. I can hold it up to the night sky and it tells me where the planets are, what a star’s name is, the name of the satellite passing overhead.

Then I realize if I painted it entirely black it would look a bit like Clarke’s monolith…