News Navigator: What makes smartphones so smart?

The Mainichi answers common questions readers may have about the rush of new smartphones now revolutionizing the Japanese mobile phone market.

Question: There are suddenly a lot of new smartphone models coming onto the market. How are they different from regular mobile phones?

Answer: It's useful to think of smartphones as more like small computers you can also use to make telephone calls than as dedicated telephones. You can view websites built for PCs and download applications, or "apps" as they are commonly known, to add functionality to your device.

Q: Smartphones also look quite different from regular mobile phones, don't they?

A: To make it easy to enter text, smartphones come with either touch screen keyboards or miniature versions of your home PC keyboard. In Japan, the product that sparked the now enormous popularity of this kind of design was Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which debuted on the SoftBank Mobile network in July 2008.

Q: Why are iPhones so popular?

A: The biggest reason is probably their ease of use. With their intuitive operating systems, there's no need for users to stare down a novel-length instruction manual to master the devices. Swipe the touch panel to turn a page, pinch and widen your fingers to enlarge or shrink what's on screen -- it all feels very natural.

Meanwhile, software developers worldwide have created a menagerie of some 250,000 apps, available often for just a few hundred yen or even for free. Furthermore, there's an app for just about everything, from business-oriented programs like one for managing business cards, to games, to apps that help you plan your workouts, like one that tells joggers exactly what course they're running and their times using GPS.

Q: Aren't NTT Docomo or KDDI's au networks offering smartphones?

A: Docomo released the Sony Ericsson Xperia smartphone in April, while au is getting ready to roll out four smartphone models including the Android-based Sharp IS03 in the coming months. The IS03 in particular seems aimed at denting the iPhone's hold on the market with new features like electronic money and e-mail designed especially for mobile phones.

Q: Will regular mobile phones go extinct?

A: There are still a lot of people who want a phone primarily for making calls, so regular mobiles probably won't disappear. However, according to the market research firm MM Research Institute, fiscal 2010 domestic smartphone sales are expected to reach 3.86 million units -- a nearly 80 percent increase over fiscal 2009 and about 10 percent of the entire Japanese mobile phone market.

Competition between mobile carriers and manufacturers will only intensify over the coming years, likely leading to model diversification and increased capabilities, and MM Research predicts smartphone sales will reach 20.3 million in fiscal 2015, outstripping regular mobile phones. (Answers by Tatsushi Inui, Business News Department)