Smart phones that aren't

I have decided that society as a whole has settled for mediocracy in the department of mobile devices. We have the term 'smart phone' and believe our devices are augmenting our lives. True they keep calendars and contacts in order, let us check our email, and even write this blog. That does not make them smart. It does make them feature ridden.

I believe smart phones are more like trained dogs. Teach a dog a command and he responds. Sit and he sits. Speak, paw, roll over. Alarm, schedule, call. Are smart phones really that advanced? I see them as conditioned beings.

To side with Alan Cooper, I am the sole user of my iPhone. It should know I always want the device to turn on to the homescreen and should load the highest level of a feature upon load. That is what a smart phone would do. Instead I find myself following a series of actions to go back in hierarchy followed by hitting the home button so that the device is ready for my next encounter. That is not a smart phone. My need to take these steps are the same as needing to clean a dogs paws after taking him for a walk. The only difference is the dog might learn to expect this and wait while you put the leash up before tending to the animal. Smart phones have no memory of past events and dart into the house first chance they get, tracking mud for the owner and user to clean up.

There has to be a fundamental change in what users expect before technology will be updated. There has to be a movement for device names to accurately reflect their abilities. This change will not come from developers as it requires coding and learning on the devices part. Users don't know to ask or what doesn't exist. Which leaves the void to be filled by interaction designers. The only problem there is how to speculate on what should and should not be learned in a polite, wizard free manner?

I am open to ideas as technology becomes more pervasive innour lives.