Since the cell phone was dubbed the "smartphone", it has easily become one of the fastest selling electronics products of all time. The first versions of smartphones offered the combined function of a personal digital assistant (PDA) with a mobile phone. Then we saw the functionality of the music player, digital camera, pocket video and even a GPS. In 2004, Apple gathered 100 employees to start building a cell phone which they called "iPhone". It was a top secret mission called "Project Purple". Then, on the 9th of January 2009, Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone to the world.
From then on, the smartphone concept has taken off quicker than anyone could imagine. Businesses in today's online marketplace understand the importance of being smartphone friendly. That means websites displayed on smartphones must have mainly text with smaller-sized images for faster loading, among other features. Today's analysts say that smartphones will be the most important computing appliance for employees going forward, surpassing even laptops. Is The Bahamas ready for this revolution? Well, it's not off to the best start. According to recent findings by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), this country is lagging behind the region in terms of mobile broadband penetration rates. The Bahamas ranked last out of 33 countries in mobile broadband penetration.
The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) is hoping to dramatically change the low ranking through new services, plans and product offerings. Some people ask: Why a smartphone? The answer is straight forward. You can just about do anything with a smartphone:
• Manage your personal life;
• Manage your work life and all your communications;
• Search for information on the web more easily;
• Receive and review documents wherever you are;
• Listen to music or watch movies while stuck on the bus, in a traffic jam, at the beach, or even at the in-laws.
In-Stat did a report in March 2009 that stated the smartphone will more than double its share of the cell phone market this year. Corporations more than ever need and crave all the highly intuitive tools and applications that smartphones now offer.The most popular smartphones are:
• iPhone
• Samsung SII and Samsung SIII
• HTC One
• Nokia Lumia
• Motorola Droid Razr
The craze has become increasingly accessible here in The Bahamas. BTC now has a large variety of smartphones starting at only $99. You will find a list of the BTC stores on BahamasLocal.com/btc. Just last week, BTC announced the first ever smartphone packages, starting with the iPhone at just $41 a month.
• Online Edge is a weekly feature aiming to improve how you interact with technology. For more information on this article, you can send an email to customerservice@bahamaslocal.com, or call 676-2683.
• BahamasLocal.com is a user-friendly search engine with exclusive listings on business and community organizations in The Bahamas. It includes information pertaining to business, news, classifieds, movie listings and local events.
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