Calling a cell phone a cell phone just isn’t good enough for former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.
In a new video sent out to supporters on Friday, Gingrich explained how the moniker “cell phone” doesn’t accurately describe today’s portable hand-held devices.
“We’re really puzzled,” he told viewers while holding an iPhone. “Here at Gingrich Productions, we’ve spent weeks trying to figure out what do you call this.”
He went on to explain that if your phone takes pictures, streams Netflix or gives access to “Wikee-pedia” then it’s not a cell phone. Gingrich added that he had been calling it a “handheld computer,” but then decided it was a misleading name.
“While it has the computing power of a 2003 laptop, its real power is not internal computation,” he said. “Its real power is networking.”
Gingrich asked for new name suggestions that convey to people “the potential to have a dramatic revolution in how we get things done” in health, government and productivity.
“I think that we need to have a new conversation about re-centering American politics and government around the kind of breakthroughs that this [iPhone] makes possible,” he added.
At the time of this article, almost 300 people had left comments on Gingrich’s site offering new names for the cell phone. Suggestions ranged from “Tricorder” and “MyWi” to “Man’s Best Friend” and “Newt.”
And while some pointed out that “smartphone” is the common term for devices like Gingrich was referencing, Woody Hales, Gingrich Productions press coordinator, told ABC News that title didn’t fit either.
“The word still makes reference to a phone, but it’s not primarily a phone anymore,” he said.
Watch the video below:
