"Hi Joel, guess where I'm calling from," were Motorola employee Dr Martin Cooper's opening words during the very first mobile phone call way back in 1973.

With the number of unwanted calls and text messages we receive today, it seems apt that the recipient of the world's first mobile call, Joel Engel, had absolutely no wish to speak to Dr Cooper in this fashion. Mr Engel was head of AT&T's Bell laboratories, and this call signified that he'd lost in the race to develop the first mobile phone.

The mobile phone industry then stayed relatively quiet until the 1980s, at which point it suddenly became a status symbol. Yuppies began strutting round the City holding brick-sized objects to their ears, and the rest of the population vowed never to follow suit.

Nevertheless, by the late 1990s, handsets had plummeted in terms of size and price, and even the most staunch detesters of mobile phones, myself included, signed up to the portable revolution.

Only five or so years ago, a mobile phone was exactly that. You could send a text message or two and perhaps play a rather dull game, but they were sold as phones and anything else was an added extra.

But as new and innovative devices hit the shelves, it leaves me wondering what the future has in store for smartphones.

The actual phone call side of things has now been pushed to one side, as new features fight to grab the limelight. With the limitations of voice calling, it's totally understandable. You speak to someone, they listen, then you listen to them.

Aside from adding video ð and I see no real need for video calls ð there's not much else you can do with a phone call. Instead, handset manufacturers are trying to lure people away from their PDAs and Pocket PCs by including the likes of 1megapixel digital cameras, advanced email clients and PC synchronisation capabilities.

Still in its early stages of development, I see a number of factors holding smartphone development back. While some of these issues will be resolved over time, there are others I feel will constantly hamper them ð the main one being size.

Like most devices, mobile phones have shrunk dramatically over time. However, with the advent of smartphones, their diminutive cases cause a big problem. How on earth can you pack all the features of a PDA into a device that's less than half its size, and still make it usable?

Attempting to squeeze a Qwerty keyboard on to a ridiculously small and already cramped device seems to be the latest fad. We've had some interesting designs float through the office in recent months, but I'm always left with the feeling that it's a hopeless cause.

The fact is that no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot place a Qwerty keyboard on a mobile phone that allows you to type as you would on your PC. To me, it seems like a fruitless exercise.

People are used to bashing words out on a numeric keypad and I can't see any reason to change. If you want a Qwerty keyboard that increases typing speeds, you'll have to put up with an extra large phone on which to accommodate it.

The same problem applies to screen sizes. There's absolutely no way you can create a smartphone that's able to realise its full potential if it only has a 2in screen. Maybe one day we'll see models that are capable of projecting out a larger image, but at present we have to accept the fact that smartphones need to be of a decent size.

Take the Sony Ericsson P910i. It's far bulkier than most other smartphones, but as a result it's able to house a reasonably sized screen. What's more, it's extremely easy to use.

Then you have the dreaded battery life. When the Orange SPV E200 came out at the beginning of the year we were astounded with the way it sapped power. Getting it to last longer than a day was a real challenge.

However, things are starting to change. Some smartphones are now trundling along for over a week, but if you're a heavy user, battery life dramatically reduces.

So, with the likes of usability, screen sizes and battery life all working against them, do smartphones have a future? I firmly believe they do, and software has a big part to play in their development.

As feature sets get ever closer to that of the traditional PDA, the hardware side of things means nothing if you don't have the software to make use of it. Being able to use your smartphone to navigate from John O'Groats to Land's End is exactly the type of shot in the arm smartphones need.

In short, we need more innovative and practical software along with a more realistic idea of how small a smartphone can be.

People will then realise that it isn't just a gimmicky device and that it can be incredibly useful to them. It's this realisation that will push the future development of smartphones and result in their inevitable success.