[bitwize]

It has to do with how nontechnical people perceived things pre-smartphone.

To technical folks, a computer is a device with a CPU that can process data and make decisions based on that data. So smartphones are computers.

To nontechnical folks before the late 2000s, a computer was a device that ran Windows or macOS with a screen and keyboard, and you use it to do spreadsheets, word processing, and such. A phone was a device that connected you to your social world via voice and later text communications. So when smartphones emerged, to nontechnical folks they looked and behaved more like phones -- social connectors -- than like computers, or information crunchers. So they got called phones.

It's like how the ancient Hebrews called whales and dolphins fish, despite those animals being classified as mammals under modern taxonomy. The Hebrews were going by how the animals looked and behaved and how people related to them, rather than genetic inheritance

[jeremyjh]

> they looked and behaved more like phones -- social connectors -- than like computers, or information crunchers. So they got called phones.

They were marketed as a replacement and upgrade for the non-smart mobile phone you already had in your pocket. People had already adopted wireless devices that could make calls, send texts, play games and even access the internet in limited ways and those devices were called phones.