A question of size: my column in this week’s Expansión

My column in this week’s edition of leading Spanish financial daily Expansión is entitled “A question of size” (pdf, in Spanish), and discusses the evolution of what we still call “cellphones” or “smartphones”, but that have long since ceased to be a telephone, instead being much closer to a “pocket computer”.

In my column, I take the reader back to the days when cellphones were becoming popular, in the 1990s, when they were being designed to be as small as possible, and compare them to what is happening now, when the continuous change in their functions seems to be leading us to the use of the gigantic phablets. This is an evolution of form follows function that has take less than a decade, and is, at the very least, surprising.

Below the illustration, the full text in English:

A question of size

The beginning of the mass use of cellphones in Spain dates back to around 1996. We can probably all remember the rapid spread of phones, and the way that they developed: from the first, large and heavy, up to the models at the beginning of the 21st century, becoming smaller and smaller. The joke of the time went something along the lines of: “a man’s cellphone is the only thing he brags about being small.”

Few of us had much idea of how phones were going to develop. In a few years, phones’ computer power increased, and we soon began to use it for other things than making telephone calls, accessing data, for example. Today, the term cellphone, or the more modern, smartphone, is really a misnomer: we are now talking about pocket computers that we sometimes use for making phone calls.

As a result, the physiognomy of phones has changed. The first iPhone, which for many people is the defining moment in the shift toward pocket computers, had a screen that was widely considered to be large. Almost three of them would now fit on the device that I currently carry around in my pocket.

Phablets, a cross between a telephone and a tablet, are monsters, with screens that are more than six inches long. Carrying one in one’s pocket brings to mind Mae West’s famous question: “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?” Putting one to one’s ear seems strange. But it doesn’t matter, because its functions are duplicated by other devices: you can use your smartwatch to see who is calling you, and then use a headset. And for other uses, the bigger the screen the better.

It’s a question of size: in less than a decade, we have gone from wanting our phones ever smaller, to wanting them ever bigger. Amazing. Who could ask for more?

(Available in Spanish here)