Our lives revolve around our smartphones.
All of you with smartphones, who utilize them well, know what I mean. All of those people without a smartphone have no clue.
I can access the internet, my email, my social outlets (Facebook, multiple forums, and other things like Skype) from almost anywhere. I sync documents between two computers and my smartphone. I can open, compose and save documents on my phone which are instantly updated on those two computers. I can take, edit and send photos and videos. I can do all of this while I hold a conversation on the phone. I use it to navigate, to calculate my gas mileage and gas prices I pay. I find the best gas prices, and report the price I pay so others can do the same. I can lookup the prices of objects on multiple websites just by scanning a barcode as I shop, so I can decide if that store has the best price. I use it to calculate decompression times for technical diving, and the gas mixtures to add to achieve the final mixture I desire. I can find good deals on Craigslist, and schedule appointments. It wakes me up in the morning, and thanks to the generous 32 gigabytes of storage, holds every song I could want to play while I fall asleep at night. If I get bored with all of that, I can play games.
In short, my smartphone is an extension of myself. It replaces multiple devices I used to use. I no longer need a calculator in my car with a pad of paper for tracking gas mileage. I no longer need a GPS. I no longer need an mp3 player. I no longer need a calendar. I no longer need a camera, or a video camera, or a computer to edit photos on. I no longer need a water cooler to talk to friends around.
When I leave the house, I need three things:
-keys
-wallet
-phone
I look forward to the day when I can leave home with just my phone. It should be pretty simple, right? Phones could easily unlock a door by sending a message via wifi, 3g cellphone signal, or bluetooth, with the right door receiver. I need my wallet to hold my ID and money. I could conceivably take photos of my ID's and store them in my phone, and now phones are increasingly being used as a method of payment.
First, let us consider the applications and hardware that allow phones to receive payment. As a business student, I look forward to possibly owning or managing a business in the near future. Being able to use my phone to not only keep in touch with customers, but to take money from them as well, is a huge plus.
This site explains several ways to do just that.
Users can already pay via phone at some places, such as Amigos by using Paypal apps on their phone to send money wirelessly.
The future though is in dedicated apps that allow you to pay anywhere, according to USA Today. However, they predict that mass adoption will only take place after 2014.
As an avid smart phone user, I can only hope that it takes place sooner than that.
Yes, soon enough we will only need to leave home with our smart phones. But, maybe the concept you mentioned regarding the ID will be bit more involved. Perhaps at some point states will do away with ID's and have some form of app for ID's on your phone in which can be quickly scanned to check someones record on a routine traffic stop or to confirm a persons identity. It may help to get rid of the issue of states have with fake ID cards. It don't seem all that farfetched if cell phones can replace credit cards.
ReplyDeleteWhat scares me is that none of the aforementioned luxurious applications of a smart phone (calculate gas, share docs, send photos etc...) make the world go round. Only one thing does: money. Because of this I don't think its safe to turn money digital. You can argue that it already is. Most people do use credit over cash but they still carry a physical card. And those credit transactions, though digital, are linked though dedicated landlines to dedicated banking mainframes. The point I'm getting at is that you need to take out every Citibank hub in the world to render your Citi card useless. With a smartphone all you need is bad reception or a space pebble to smack that satellite and you're done. These fears are of course in response to talk of a fully digital economy, not the convenient hybrid system we have today.
ReplyDeleteWhile I must agree with you regarding the efficacy of smartphones to revolutionize our lives, Orlando raises a valid point. Even with an excellent smartphone, data coverage is easily lost. Basing monetary transactions on a system that is at this point so unreliable seems like taking high risks for low returns.
ReplyDeleteI agree that using the smartphone as a payment device is risky, but companies like Starbucks are providing means to mitigate that risk and still allow their customers to make purchases with their smart phones. Having their mobile app sync with a Starbucks gift card eliminates the risk of third parties trying to steal your information and your money. Years ago people said the same thing about making purchases over the internet, yet today e-business is growing rapidly. Maybe the smartphone technology is not there yet, but someday everything will be done through the smartphone.
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