And yet you felt the need to post here and bore us with this vacuous comment.

People care about phones because they stopped being just phones years ago.

"phone" is a weird word to use for these devices. It's a computer in your pocket with instant access to the Internet that just haphazardly has a GSM module for legacy reasons.

This is even more striking when my kids (3 & 5) ask for my phone: I'm watching a common word get completely changed for the next generation. Adults think "phone" as a verbal communication device, often having been overloaded with a stunning amount of alternate communications & computing power. Young kids see a "phone" as a visual toy and movie player, with data communications, and voice calls relegated to "yeah, you can do that too". "Phone" may very well largely replace "computer".

Words change in definition. Very few people have a 'traditional' phone now, so the word would become useless if we didn't repurpose it.

What is wrong with calling them phones, exactly?

They should call them communicators, like on Star Trek. Unfortunately that ship has sailed.

I actually prefer the UK word "mobile" which takes away the phone connotation, and combines with "computer" as well as "phone."

::whispers into your ear:: "PIN number..., ATM machine...*"

These "phones" make such huge difference to my life that I can't imagine not discussing them.

I just moved to san francisco from UK. I have never been here before. Using my phone I can video call my family, who are missing my daughter, from a supermarket. I can discover places to shop, eat and have fun at the touch of a button. I can update my friends back home with how I'm getting on.

These phones impact at least 50% of my life, so of course I'm going to discuss them - at length.

It's exciting for some people. Technology is still changing relatively quickly in mobile. The improvements to hardware and software have been amazing over the past half decade. Apple only releases new phones once a year so the buzz gets more intense.

You hardly hear about desktop computers anymore unless you follow the industry closely. I remember when the Intel Pentium being released was a huge deal in all the news media.