The
evolution of Smartphone Technology
What is a Smartphone
As
mobile phones started to be used widely across the globe in last
decade, the evolution of those devices was a logical step forward.
Almost every mobile phone manufacturer have started building a
devices that are called smartphones.
Day
by day we constantly face new types of technologies and
infrastructures that help advance us as a society because our need to
communicate and interact. One of the most monumental contributions,
in IT, was the development of the first computer along with the
Internet itself. These two developments have shaped society, as we
know it today and further contributed how we send and receive
information. In our type of society, where everything is moving at a
fast pace, we want to have access to advanced services and technology
indoors and outdoors in a simplistic way or form. From these two
things alone, it has also influenced something as complex yet simple
as a smartphone. According to Rysavy (2010), a smartphone is a clever
device with high-quality services that is portable, user-friendly,
interactive and most importantly beneficial. Smartphones have made it
possible to make simple task easy and accessible but has also made it
a target to malware developers.
While
the use of a computer and laptop are huge advances, it is becoming
more common to see people access the Internet with their tablet or smartphone. These individual tools are almost as powerful as things
such as a netbook and it is also doubled as a cell phone and they are
able to access the internet anywhere even without the use of WI-FI
(Wireless Fidelity, Wireless Internet).
With
the invention and launch of the iPhone in 2007, it started a boom of
smartphones through out the world. Different manufacturers strive to
prefect the perfect phone in order to commend their dominance in the
smartphone industry. A perfect phone nowadays does not only include
the actual notion of communicating with someone but has to have
internet, games, a high definition camera, built in music
application, a GPS, a video call function and much more. Even with
those features it has to be user friendly, small enough to carry
around but also big enough to use the services to its full potential.
With the invention of the smartphone it allows users to have certain
apps or applications in order to full fill numerous types of task.
For example, the user is now able to quickly put in notes towards
their phone and send map locations to friends and family with the
ability to do so in relatively long distances.
With
mobile phones, smartphones and the Ipad being much like its predecessors, the Personal Computer, it is often we
hear about security threats. Luckily we mainly hear about these
issues with people of higher social status such as public officials
or celebrities but that does not make the issue any less severe. Even
so, as the adaptation of smartphone increases, these devices are
targets to attackers who wish to infect them with malware and even
simple developers can write these malicious software. According to
Rodrigues (2011), “Smartphone malware isn’t yet as big a threat
as you might think, but it’s coming.” Also Rodrigues (2011)
stated, malware writers usually target Android apps because of the
way they are set up—usually writers can disable an app, “repackage”
it with malware and upload it again with a different title.
Cyber-criminals have managed to create malware to specifically attack
and pilfer through ones mobile baking account, which has been the
case of those with online and mobile baking (McGarvey, 2012).
