6. Mobile phone services

Mobile phones are so popular because they allow you to get in touch with other people whilst you (or they) are out and about. In fact many people do not even bother with a land line telephone at home - they just use their mobile for all calls.

Typical services on even a basic mobile phone are

• Making and receiving telephone calls
• Use SMS (Short Message Service) commonly called text messaging
• Use MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) for sending and receiving photos or video or sound
• Built in camera

Smart phones go much further than this :

• Browsing the World Wide Web
• Sending and receiving emails
• Making Video calls
• Running any of tens of thousands of 'apps' free or paid for.
• Recording video clips and sending them to a social network site
• Music player with stored library of tracks (in mp3 format)
• Radio player
• GPS navigation (with the right software)
• Real-time location and maps
• Touch screen control

The most significant thing to have happened is the rise of the 'App'. A smart phone includes a number of sensors

• GPS chip
• Accelerometers (senses tilt and rotation)
• Cameras (many have two)
• Touch screen
• Microphone

And there are apps that make very clever use of one or more of these sensors. For example a compass app makes use of the accelerometer sensors. Augmented reality apps connect to the internet in real-time and overlay what is seen with the camera. Music finding services can use the microphone to identify the track you are listening to on the radio or TV and tell you its title, it will even connect you to a music shop so you can buy it.