Mobile Phone Trends You May Want To Jump on the Bandwagon For

 Almost all of us have mobile phones today but the range of things that we use our mobile phones for remains quite diverse. Some of us still get that basic free mobile phone that we use only to make a receive calls. Others have really advanced mobile phones that they use for everything from taking and sending pictures to accessing the web. For those of us who are towards the behind-the-times end of this spectrum, there are some key mobile phone trends that we may want to start paying attention to so that we can at least move towards the middle of that mobile phone user spectrum.

Major Mobile Phone Trends to Watch Today

These are some of the key mobile phone trends that have either already taken off recently or are in the early stages of becoming popular:

• The use of smartphones by all types of phone consumers. Gone are the days when the BlackBerry was the only smart phone and it was only used by professional people. All types of cell phones users are getting smartphones today. It almost doesn’t make sense to get anything else anymore. If you still haven’t jumped on this bandwagon, it’s really about time.

• The common sight of touchscreen phones. In addition to phones increasingly being smartphones, many of them are starting to incorporate the touchscreen design that first become popular with the iPhone. Not everyone likes the touchscreen phone but it’s definitely something to at least consider when making the purchase of a new mobile phone.

• Use of the mobile web. There are many different reasons that people are getting smartphones but the main reason is that the mobile web has really been developed in the past couple of years. You can easily access the full Internet and do many of the things that you would normally do on a personal computer all from your phone. If you haven’t started using the mobile web but you’re a regular Internet user then you may want to ask yourself what the reason is that you haven’t made this leap.

• Staying in touch with others through mobile social networking. Social networking has grown considerably and most of us are doing it in some form, usually through a site like Facebook. The mobile version of Facebook has grown in popularity. In addition, more and more people are using social networking sites such as Twitter that are designed to be primarily used from the mobile phone.

• Steady increase in use of geolocation services on your phone. Phones are typically enhanced with GPS today which means you can use a variety of geolocation services such as maps services or tagging camera phone photos with the location where they were taken.

• Personalization of mobile phones. Gone are the days when you purchased your mobile phone from the company and just accepted what it came with. Today you can download all sorts of things to personalize your phone. And if you’ve got a smartphone, you can really get creative in downloading applications for web stores like the Apple store for the iPhone or the Android Market for the new Google-based phones that are starting to come out. You can have what you want on your phone so why shouldn’t you?

• Doing mobile banking from the phone. This is already popular in Japan and is increasingly becoming an option in the United States and Europe. Banking via the mobile web is one option but another is basic SMS banking wherein you receive and send text messages to your bank to complete transactions such as checking account balances.

• Going hands-free with your mobile phone. Whether you want to use the new Bluetooth because you think it’s cool or you simply want to make sure that you don’t get fined for talking on the phone while driving, you’ve probably at least started to consider going hands-free with your mobile phone at least part of the time. There are even rumors of a totally hands-free phone coming out at the end of the year!

• Being green with your mobile phone. People may not be keeping their phones any longer than they did in the past but they’re becoming more and more responsible with how they dispose of their phones when they’re done with them. If you aren’t doing your part to recycle your electronics appropriately then you have some work to do in this area and you should start doing it quickly!

• Behind the scenes stuff. There are a lot of changes going on in the wireless industry that you may not completely understand but they’re definitely going to make an impact on you. The increasing availability of 3G (and even 4G) networks is one example. The changes that have occurred with wireless standards is another example. You may want to consider staying on top of this news if you really want to be someone who has moved up the ladder of mobile ability!

• Advances in mobile phone security. One of those behind-the-scenes things that may directly affect you is that mobile phone security is becoming increasingly advanced to counteract the risks that we take when we open up the mobile phones to the mobile web.

How Much Will Mobile Phones Change in 2009?

It’s hard to believe that mobile phones will change a lot in the next twelve months or so. But if you think back to how much phones have changed in just the short time that we’ve been using them, you’ll see that big changes certainly can occur relatively quickly in the wireless world. The growth of all of these different mobile phone trends will combine together to change the way that we approach the use of our mobile phones. The experience for some of us may be quite different a year from now than it is today. And then there will be those of us who are still using the basic free phone from our companies and wondering what all of the fuss is about!