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Five Gadget Which Were Killed by The Cellphone

blog.wired.com — Calling a cellphone a mere phone seems a little silly these days. The little pocket wonders now do so much they are really handheld computers. With extras. The process of mashing one or more gadgets together in the same box used to be called convergence, but that approach quietly died as the mobile phone ate up any and every rival device.

Who dugg this? Made popular Nov 18, 2008

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  • Wallower1, on 11/17/2008, -0/+107What about the "Beeper". There used to be an entire network of beepers al ove rthe nation/world.
  • jonfish, on 11/18/2008, -1/+75What about the watch?
  • moiraetc, on 11/17/2008, -0/+66Not to mention travel alarm clocks and calculators...
  • GeeksSpeakFont, on 11/17/2008, -2/+41i don't know about phones replacing the notebook... gotta love the big screen for videos! cells definitely did replaces PDAs though!
  • inactive, on 11/17/2008, -5/+42Vibrators....anyone?
  • inactive, on 11/18/2008, -1/+35Where the ***** is pager? Oh and btw, cameras and mp3 players will not die for a long time. mp3 players and cameras that are incorporated in most of the modern phones are pretty *****.
  • stewlava, on 11/18/2008, -0/+28yeah a more accurate top 5 would be
    1. pager
    2. payphone
    3. pda
    4. $2 calculator
    5. alarm/watch

    never say never but... i dont see mp3 players, cameras and laptops being killed by a phone
  • untitlednet, on 11/18/2008, -5/+32flashlight.
  • mitikomon, on 11/18/2008, -3/+29as a watch yes, as a jewelery or accessory no.
  • Fatcheeseguy, on 11/18/2008, -0/+23Is a pay phone considered a gadget?
  • Dugglous, on 11/18/2008, -0/+17I was in the generation of beepers and cell phones killed them off so fast it felt like they were gobbled up by a black hole and just went away.
  • kolop1, on 11/18/2008, -1/+18What about the basic calculator?
  • MSP1, on 11/18/2008, -1/+15Like so many people in the media (and on Digg), the author of this article cannot tell the difference between "Everyone" and "Me and My Mates". "No one I know uses a PDA or a Land line so they must be dead". Such insularity!
  • spolastre, on 11/17/2008, -2/+14I doubt it will ever replace the Notebook, but you can never be too sure.
  • hartley, on 11/18/2008, -0/+11Also, the very physically limited "car phone".
    Of course one could argue it was technically a cell phone. Just not a very portable one.
  • Kristijan12, on 11/18/2008, -0/+10In my country calls from cell phone are still very expensive for the reason of monopoly.
    So the land line phones are still very active.
    Serbia fail again...
  • jasdf, on 11/18/2008, -1/+10For simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division a cell phone will work, anything beyond that it is hopeless.
  • quomen, on 11/18/2008, -2/+10Pagers are not on this list. Why not?
    And i'd take my Dell Mini Netbook for browsing and taking notes over any phone.
  • NoozeHound, on 11/18/2008, -0/+8One thing the mobile hasn't replaced - half decent speakers. Now, someone please add some kind of weapon to my mobile so I can kill the ***** that insist on inflicting their musical preferences from their ***** mobile speakers.

    \rant off
  • onidraky, on 11/18/2008, -1/+9Until they have phones with 80GB+ of storage for a decent price, the mp3 player is not dead. My phone has an mp3 player, but how often to I use it? Almost never. Being on a college campus it's pretty easy to see that 99.99% of people carry a phone and an mp3 player around. I rarely see anyone listening to music on their phone. Same idea with the camera, though people don't carry around cameras anyone planning to take a picture goes to grab a digital camera first.
  • Headinawheel, on 11/18/2008, -1/+7If I could honestly digg you more, I would. That just about summed up the seeming crazed ***** on that article. Also, a link from this article is "Five Useless Gadgets You Should Throw in the Trash Right Now", also written by the same doucheclown, listing even more cockeyed insanity.

    I wonder why the hell this guy even has a job writing this drivel...
  • UndeniablyRexer, on 11/18/2008, -0/+6How do you know the PDA didn't replace cell phones?
    Same with computers; Skype? Iphone is basically a small notebook that can call people(If it used Skype people would probably call it a small monebook).
  • BarriedaleNick, on 11/18/2008, -0/+6What an exceedingly crap article. It ignores the obvious like beepers and calculators and instead goes for rather dubious choices like the land line. Everyone I know has a landline - if not just for the adsl service then for calling abroad which is stupidly expensive on a mob.
    They even admit that cameras arent dead. I wouldn't agree with the UMPC either - I work in a school and so many pupils have mini PCs to take notes etc. Notebook/Laptop - Not a ***** chance!
  • dtstuff9, on 11/18/2008, -1/+6Cellphones will NEVER eliminate calculators no matter what kind of calculation a cellphone can do because a lot of schools wouldn't allow using cellphones during tests.
  • Spanktacular, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4A list of five killed gadgets, three of which are still around and in abundant use...

    What was the point of this?
  • inactive, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4"Five Gadget Which Were Killed by The Cellphone"

    "We're not saying that the standalone camera is dead. Far from it....."


    Author seems confused.
  • Jareth86, on 11/18/2008, -2/+6Buried as inaccurate. I still have a land line, and while the iphone is basically an mp3 player, most other phones will not play mp3s unless bought from their crappy service (vcast comes to mind).
  • kakwakas, on 11/18/2008, -2/+6My phone has a stopwatch on it. Hah.
  • teebird, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4Wow...even the word "walkie-talkie" is as good as obsolete. I went to a local big-box store to buy a pair of FRS radios. When I said "walkie-talkie" to the 20-something sales drone, I got a stare as blank as sheet of paper. Remembering the age gap of a couple of generations between us, I said "handheld communicators" and the light came back in her eyes and she showed me to the right counter.
  • vatchea, on 11/18/2008, -1/+5@willynilly woah sorry captain personal!
  • myhandleondigg, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4And when your battery is dead from playing MP3s and surfing the web I won't have to hear you talk about how many gadgets you've ditched.
  • Adralemechk, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3Actually, they're making projectors now that can display screens up to 50 inches, but fit in your pocket. The cell phone may yet replace your notebook.
  • CressCrowbits, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3The MP3 player in my Nokia N82 is pretty good. Certainly good enough to ditch my old iRiver. And, it has BUTTONS so I can use it in my POCKET without taking it OUT and looking at IT. Suck on that, iPhone!
  • jesseber, on 11/18/2008, -1/+4"a headphone jack is now a standard feature on even the cheapest of handsets (with some notable exceptions)..."

    zing!
  • secrity, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3Those are more like replacing the slide projector.
  • tnerd, on 11/17/2008, -1/+4Bwahhahhahaha!
  • nickem, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3The home Fax software was a huge part of the land line communications structure. With the land line gone, so are the fax capabilities.
    My car phone had the footprint of a notebook but weighed more than a laptop. (don't forget to bring the extra antenna.)
  • jaschen, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3What about walkie talkies?????????
  • Pyroteq, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3Ok, the article was good until number 5. ***** laptops, are you serious? Yes, we can watch movies on our mobile phones if you want to chew through the battery life and watch it on a tiny ***** screen. When was the last time you saw someone creating an excel spreadsheet on a mobile? Hell, how about doing something as simple as typing a word document, yeah, I guess you could do it on a mobile phone if you want it to take 50 times longer.
  • Visarga, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3"s"

    I give it to you for free. Attach it to "Gadget" in the title.
  • CrazyDave303, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3I think the author got this totally wrong, the PDA / UMPC / MP3 player are killing off the cell phone not the other way around. And the list items that the cell phone hurt the sales of is much longer then 5 things The only thing I can say the cellphone really killed off are pagers and good manners

    Now they just need to add scales to the phone
  • MrTito, on 11/18/2008, -1/+4You nailed it. I've had a digital SLR for almost four years, but I just bought my first digital point-and-shoot a month ago because carrying around a DSLR isn't always practical and I'm too picky about image quality to rely on ANY cellphone camera for pictures.

    Double-nail on the MP3 player death clock. Some people want a device solely for music, like me. My iPod serves the exact purpose I want and I don't need another device co-opting that purpose.

    This whole article ignores the concept of aficionados. Vinyl records are still around, even if they are niche.
  • Rudegar, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3agreed Mpixel is not everything
    small lenses size, cmos chip and cheap optics
    still mean that pictures look bad
    sure more mpixels mean those bad looking
    pictures are larger but still bad
  • DreadPirate, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3No compromise required to replace an ipod with a cellphone? What about battery life? My cell phone barely can make it a full day without needing to be charged with only normal non-mp3 playing use. My ipod can last six to eight hours of continual use before it would need to be charged. With normal intermittent use, I can go 2-3 days before my ipod needs to be charged.

    I will gladly carry around an ipod in my backpack and a cellphone on my hip rather than trying to cram the two devices into one less functional device.
  • bizzywho, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2I doubt that the notebook is gonna go anytime soon.

    There are things on a full sized computer you can't do on your cellphone.
  • crownedgriffin, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2I have a four year old cell phone that plays Midis, and a tape player in my car. :D
  • Diggnabbit, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2They're coming back! Technology is cyclical.
  • qwertydvorak, on 11/18/2008, -0/+2get better service ? i haven't had a land line since 2001 and i never have any dropped calls. i only occasionally (once a month) get a wierd call where i echo back to myself or something, and when i do i tell the person i will call them back and it is fixed.
  • inactive, on 11/18/2008, -1/+3There are a lot of things stated in this article that cell-phones have not and likely will not replace.
    While I don't have a land-line (I have a dry-loop service for my DSL), most of the people I know have one. I think land-lines may possibly be eliminated in the lives of young people like college students or single people but when you have a family it is much more convenient to have a land-line.
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