The Smartphone

August 15, 2014
An intricate dissection of the smartphone from technology reporter Woyke. Even if you are not a smartphone user, the author's comprehensive examination of the beguiling device is worth the effort. The author, a former Businessweek and Forbes staff writer, begins with the Motorola DynaTAC, which figures prominently in movies circa 1973 and looks as though someone is talking into a boot. Woyke then makes a quick jump from the cellphone to the smartphone, which runs on an open operating system and can host applications, with displays, browsers, email, cameras, and music and video players. All things considered, they are modern-day marvels, but Woyke maintains a serious, information-driven and no-nonsense tone in her writing. After a walk down Memory Lane-Simon, Palm Pilot, Handspring's Treo 600 as the height of fashion-Woyke gets to the meat of the matter: "The smartphone wars are intense because the market is large and lucrative. Estimates of its size range between $250 billion and $350 billion, which is larger than the PC market and more than twice as large as the Internet advertising market, although both of those markets existed years before smartphones." The author does a good job explaining the relationships among the makers, carriers and developers, and she delivers an engrossing chapter on design trends. Woyke also scrutinizes the working conditions of those employed to assemble smartphones, as well as the studies of health issues related to radiofrequency energy and the ever present problem surrounding privacy. The author presents an informed and intelligent "Smartphone Bill of Rights," which includes such tenets as transparency, choice regarding software, keeping data collection to a minimum, squelching planned obsolescence and being fully apprised of the "makers' policies toward laborers and the environment." A smartphone full monty that will appeal mostly to the device's users-all 1.75 billion of them.

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October 1, 2014

Journalist Woyke examines the smartphone industry, beginning with the small companies that competed to introduce the first mobile telephone for consumers, then follows the process of technology advances, and, finally, traces the life cycle of today's smartphone. The early days were filled with large devices, such as BlackBerrys and PalmPilots, carrying out simple tasks. Fast-forward to 2007, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone and mobile technology changed in an instant. Thus began the technology wars among Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and others, all vying for patents for software and hardware design. Woyke addresses assembly complications between company-owned factories and those that contract out the work while also discussing how the excavating of raw minerals and materials to create thousands of devices is laborious work, sometimes performed by children. Detailed are the ways manufacturers have planned obsolescence with trade-in and recycling built into the machine's life span. VERDICT Woyke's intelligent discourse easily explains the evolving industry--a wise read for anyone with a smartphone.--Meghan Dowell, Beloit Coll., WI

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2014
Although smartphones have only been around a fraction of the time automobiles have, many of us consider these ubiquitous mobile devices equally indispensable to our lifestyles. Yet few of us suspect that the convenience of being able to text messages or find directions to the nearest Starbucks at a moment's notice might have any serious downsides. In this provocative expos' of the smartphone industry, telecom expert and former Forbes magazine staff writer Woyke reveals the dark side of our favorite gadget's usage and manufacture, from the cutthroat competition between its designers to the exploitation of Third World laborers who mine the precious metals they are made of. After describing the evolution of primitive cell phones into the first BlackBerry handhelds and iPhones, Woyke looks at the waste involved in both assembling and discarding smartphones, as well as radiation concerns and privacy issues. Readers who fully absorb the more disturbing details of Woyke's report will never be able to download a new app or listen to a podcast without a twinge or two of consumer guilt.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)