Newt Gingrich and the fine folks at Gingrich Productions are puzzled. Truly puzzled. Just what the hell do you call a phone that has apps, lets you take pictures, and allows you to browse the interwebs?
“Think about it. If it’s taking pictures, it’s not a cell phone. If it has, um, a McDonald’s app to tell you where McDonald’s is based on your GPS location, that’s not a cell phone. If you can get Wikipedia or get Google, that’s not a cell phone. If you can watch YouTube, that’s not a cell phone – or Netflix…think about it.”
Apparently, Gingrich wants help in deciding what we should call these futuristic devices. Here’s what he has to say on his YouTube channel:
To call this a “cell phone” or a “handheld computer” fails to capture the change that has taken place. It is a change in kind, not just a change in scale, and just as drivers of the earliest cars called them “horseless carriages”, our language has not caught up. So having failed for several days to come up with an adequate term for the device we call a “cell phone,” we want to open the discussion up to you. Let us know in the comments what you think we should name it, and we’ll feature the best ones in a future newsletter.
It’s a smartphone, Newt. A smartphone. I kind of get what you’re saying, but it’s a smartphone.
Check out the bizarre video below: