Besides the steep price for most real smartphones, I think complexity still drives away most consumers.  The real question becomes, how smart can your average user make the smartphone after the purchase? Can you really rely on users to to point to an Exchange server, load Skype, or upgrade their instant messaging (IM) software? Add the fact that a lot of smartphones just aren’t very good phones to begin with and it makes the concept of a smartphone nice, but still daunting to most.

I bet if I configured GMail, gave you mobile access to XM radio, and a mobile RSS reader you’d say, WOW that’s a smartphone!

But even with complicated interfaces and bloated software, smartphones sales are growing steadily. In fact, according to eMarketer, the NPD Group says the US  is actually experiencing a ”growth spurt” in the smartphone market. 

And with all that growth comes plummeting prices. Case in point. It was less than a year ago that I dropped almost 5 bills, (yep $500) on one of the early smartphones. I think back then “smart” just meant it ran Windows and had WiFi. Same phone now? Couple hundred bucks. Upgrade anyone?

One tidbit from the report caught my eye.

“Smartphone users spent an average of $6.31 per month for wireless data in the third quarter. By comparison, owners of all types of mobile phones spent just $0.89.”

What I’m a little unsure of is how anyone manages to get any work done with $6.31 of downloaded data. I guess the $0.89 is a few text messages and a quickly downloaded weather forecast? Trust me, you can’t get much content these days without forking over $30-40 bucks for an unlimited data plan. But most consumers ( including myself) think data plans are too expensive. In fact, analyst firm IDC said recently that 73 percent of us think that way.

More importantly I think, you can see why the smartphone user is so coveted. They’re the ones looking at the mobile banner ads, receiving text messages, and using location-based GPS services to get to their next watering hole. That translates to disposable income. And it translates to dollar signs for advertisers and marketers.