Jon Smith’s day starts with a 5 a.m. wake-up call. Literally.

“My cell phone is my alarm clock, so it’s the first thing I look at every morning,” he said.

After a quick check of his e-mail (on his phone), a scan of the morning headlines (on his phone) and a glance at his appointments for the day (yes, also on his phone), Smith, a realtor with Iowa Realty, usually gets his first call of the day at around 8 a.m. That is followed by roughly 60 more calls throughout the day.

“It was a slow day today,” he said. “I only received 23 calls.”

Any time someone shows one of his homes to a potential buyer, Smith receives a text message. While showing homes to a client, he can look up any listing by using the Web browser on his handheld. If a client is a fisherman, Smith might show off pictures of the 53-pound king salmon he caught in Alaska. He uses a digital recorder in the phone to jot down notes.

But he also uses it for important stuff, like visiting Cubs.com.

“I can’t imagine how I got along without my cell phone,” Smith said. “It would be like going into detox if I didn’t have it anymore.”

A growing number of people feel the same way.

Whole industries are now reconfiguring themselves to keep feeding the addiction. In the past year, cellular-service providers and phonemakers have begun moving to faster technologies, including both Wi-Fi and WiMAX. Two industry trade shows in January unleashed a flood of innovative gadgets and services that will stretch the definition of wireless communication as it is now known.

“You can’t even really call them cell phones anymore,” said Miles McMillin, a spokesman for Sprint Nextel Corp. “A wireless device is probably a better way of putting it. They do so much now; the fact that you can actually make phone calls is kind of an afterthought.”

Getting out of the office

The business world used to be chained to the desktop computer. Then laptops came along, offering the convenience of mobility. But a host of advances, including faster network speeds, exotic new batteries, and bright, energy-efficient screens for mobile gadgets, could cut some of the last tethers to the PC.

“Our customers want to be able to go beyond just checking their e-mail,” said Dennis Dohrmann, manager of data sales for Verizon Wireless. “They can access all the applications just like they were sitting at their desk from their phone.”

And despite the increase in the number of things they can do, the price of handheld devices, and the service to make them go, has remained steady.

Ron Schmudlach, area direct sales manager for U.S. Cellular Corp., said the ability to check your calendar from anywhere is a feature many business people have fallen in love with.

“If a meeting is added to their calendar, they know about it immediately,” he said. “Convenience is extremely important.”

The handset, stuffed with content you purchase or create, will become your personal television network, your digital camera and your music studio.

One day, it could even become your wallet, dispensing digital money.

Shopping, banking are near

McMillin said m-commerce, or mobile commerce, is currently in the testing stages and could become a reality sooner rather than later. This is the idea that users will shop, pay bills and do their banking from their phones. Recent studies have shown that people notice their cell phone is missing within an hour of losing it, compared with a day or more for credit cards and wallets, he said.

“I may get to work and then realize I don’t have my wallet, but it doesn’t take long to realize the cell isn’t there,” McMillin said. “And I turn right around and head home to get it.”

Credit card companies such as American Express and Visa are working with phonemakers and service providers to add low-power chips for two-way communication between handhelds and payment systems, replacing the traditional credit card.

“Things like this are closer than most realize,” McMillin said. “Most analysts predict limited commercial deployment by 2008.”

Schmudlach agrees, saying that though there are security concerns for these types of options, they are certainly on their way.

Mobile phones could also become your personal location service. Today, cars with global positioning system devices can tell you how to get to your destination. Phonemakers are now building the same kind of technology into their handsets.

“If you’re on a business trip in a strange city, your phone can give you turn-by-turn directions to where you’re headed,” Dohrmann said. “It will even tell you when you’ve made a wrong turn and recalculate your route.”

But the GPS technology doesn’t stop with directions. Dohrmann said a new option Verizon offers, called the chaperone, can help keep track of your children.

“You set up a boundary, say, around your house,” he said. “When the phone crosses that boundary, you get a text message.”

So if you’re at work when the kids get out of school, you’ll know when they arrive home safely.

For the business world, companies can use their cell phones to track deliveries, manage inventories, even have workers clock in and out.

“Businesses are figuring out new ways to use the technology,” Dohrmann said. “We’re trying to catch up with what they want.”

Zachary Voss, president of Voss Distributing LLC, said his sales team uses text messaging and picture messaging constantly.

“Picture messaging is very useful for us because it allows sales reps to share examples of successful displays, when stores allow it, with our retail partners as well as management of my company,” he said.

Personally, Voss uses his satellite phone to check wind speeds and direction when he goes sailing.

Then you lose it “The evolution of the cell phone has changed America,” McMillin said. “They have become a part of our culture.”

Even going on vacation has changed.

“If you want to declare you’re going on vacation and don’t want to be reached, you say, ‘I’m turning off the cell phone,'” McMillin said. “It’s hard to imagine there was a time when I was able to leave the house without my cell phone in hand.” But now that people do so much with their phones, what happens when they inevitably lose them?

“A very inexpensive option we offer is i-backup, which keeps all your information that can be uploaded to a new phone if you lose it,” Schmudlach said.

The benefits to businesses are almost endless, Dohrmann said, with so many functions being compressed into the handheld device.

In the end, McMillin said, many consumers aren’t going to want to buy several different electronic devices; they want it all in one.

“You can watch TV on your phone, get a pay-per-view movie, purchase and download your favorite song,” he said. “People are becoming more comfortable with technology, and so they don’t want to buy nine different devices. They want this one thing to do it all.”

Smith said his phone has changed the way he does business, saving him “endless amounts of time.”

“Even when I’m out of town, I can do anything I would need to do in the office except show a house,” he said. “It’s so important that I always have it that I have three batteries with me at all times.”