The History and Evolution of the Smartphone

What is a smartphone? It turns out that the actual definition, regardless of the source, is rather vague. Merriam-Webster briefly calls the smartphone “a mobile phone, which includes additional software features (such as email or an Internet browser).” On the other hand, Oxford dictionaries are becoming a bit more accurate, saying that a smartphone “is capable of performing many computer functions, usually with a relatively large screen and an operating system capable of running general-purpose applications.”

In any case, there is a fine line between what is or is not a smartphone these days, even if the so-called “dumb” or “regular” phones can perform many of the same functions. Even the cheapest and cheapest smartphones are noticeably different from their stupid counterparts.

But where did it all start? Who made the first smartphone? What were the early models of smartphones?

Start

The following year, Simon went on sale through BellSouth Cellular for a whopping $ 899 with a two-year agreement or $ 1099 without a contract. Approximately 50,000 units of Simon were sold, and due to the IBM crisis in the mid-90s, computer giant and BellSouth decided against second-generation Simon, BusinessWeek reported.

Despite the ability to send and receive emails and faxes, Simon was never technically called a smartphone, although in retrospect, that was what it was.

Nokia entered the not yet developed space for smartphones in 1996. She launched the Nokia 9000 Communicator, a 1.5-inch phone and a 397 g phone with an outward-facing keyboard, navigation keys and a monochrome display. Unlike Simon, since 1996, the 9000 communicator looked almost like a regular 1996 cell phone. However, on the left was a hinge that opened the full QWERTY keyboard and physical navigation buttons on the sides of a larger display (also monochrome).

The Nokia 9000 Communicator — also not officially called a smartphone at the time — was able to work with email, fax, web browsing (a function that Simon lacked), word processing, and even spreadsheets. Under the hood, an Intel i386 processor with 24 MHz was buzzing, and it only had 8 MB of memory.

The term “smartphone” was not coined until, a year later, Ericsson released the concept of the GS 88, otherwise known as the Penelope. Its appearance and design were strikingly similar to the 9000 communicator, although it contained a touch screen inside and came with a stylus.

At the turn of the century, other manufacturers began to mix the functionality of a PDA with mobile phones. Qualcomm released the pdQ-1900 with the Palm OS operating system, Ericsson introduced the R380, and Palm introduced the Kyocera 6035, all similar vertically oriented cell phones with hinges at the bottom of the phone, which allowed the dial pad to tip and open. A much larger touchscreen down below.

At this time, smartphones were still emerging in the mass consumer market.

From enterprise to consumer

While the rest of the world is still largely focused on basic cellular, Japan became the first mobile market to popularize the smartphone. Frank Wired of Wired explains how I-mode, a wireless network capable of transmitting data at just 9.6 Kbps, turned Japan into the first “country after PC”.

The first Research in Motion device, the BlackBerry 850, a kind of two-way pager, was launched in 1999, followed by several different models, such as the world-famous monochrome 6200 and color 7200 series. By focusing on email with spacious keyboards, the BlackBerry has become a well-known brand in the corporate market.

In the early 2000s, Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Palm OS and Windows Mobile (then identified as PocketPC 2000) became more popular. With capabilities such as email, fax, web browsing and other company-focused features, they also formed factors that were adapted to such use cases. Between 2000 and 2006, cell phone manufacturers enthusiastically explored dozens of differently shaped factors to capitalize on the new mobile functionality. Sliding and rotating keyboards, rotating screens, wafer-style phones with screens located on perms, vertical keyboards and even phones with multiple keyboards. Resistive touch screens made their way into smartphones, and the popularity of the touch pen was born, almost out of sheer need, as these early smartphone models were not very finger friendly. Resistive touch screens required pressure, unlike modern captive digitizers, and the early incarnations of various mobile operating systems were not designed exactly with the big fingers in mind.

During these early years, manufacturers such as Palm, HTC, HP, Research in Motion (now BlackBerry), Samsung, Nokia, Motorola and Audiovox made a name for themselves. Dozens of smartphones were launched in the next seven years.

The Symbian hitter was the Nokia N95. However, all devices like the N73, E71, E90, 3650 and N82 still resonate with the old Symbian users. And the Sony Ericsson P990i is one of the most memorable Nokia Symbian phones.

Palm OS phones also came in droves, from manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung, Acer, Gamin, IBM and even Palm.

Still, one of the most memorable smartphones of this era came from a company with the name of Danger, Inc. Sidekick, or also known as Hip Top, Mobiflip and Sharp Jump. Your screen left the center of the phone, exposing a horizontal QWERTY below. He ran the exclusive Java-based DangerOS and focused heavily on rapid text-based communication, that is, instant messaging clients of the time, such as AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger.

Once again, these smartphones were marketed primarily for business and corporate users who needed to be connected while traveling. However, through the large number of phones and the convenience of Internet on demand from virtually anywhere in the world, it attracted the consumer market in the mid-2000s. From 2004 to 2007, the use of smartphones increased dramatically, and devices such as the BlackBerry 8700 and the Charm, Samsung Blackjack, Palm Treo and Motorola Q series, intended for consumers, fell into the hands of everyday consumers.

As such, the software became a little easier to use, third-party applications and games slowly began to surround the Internet forums (without centralized catalogs), and wireless service providers began to offer the most capable smartphones along with the data plans.

The boom of the iPhone

While enthusiasts and non-business users had found other uses for their smartphones than email and work, the main function of such devices was to keep employees within reach and connected away from the desk. Smartphones were used mainly for correspondence and light web browsing on the train.

Everything was ready to change when Apple announced the iPhone in January 2007 and launched it months later in June. Apple’s idea of​​the smart phone combined powerful multimedia features with the same email and web browsing features that all other smartphones had previously. It had a large color screen with a digitalized, and its user interface was finally finger-friendly. And unlike the phones before, the iPhone had only one button on the front side — the Home button — and three at its edges, two to increase / decrease the volume and one to power / standby. At that time, the Apple iOS mobile operating system was still very simple, but it was the first glimpse of the new, modern mobile operating systems for smartphones that we know and love today.

The real contextual transition from the iPhone, however, was how websites were displayed on mobile devices. Thanks to the Web Kit browser, which debuted in iOS, they were no longer hacked, stupid versions of full-featured desktop sites, but completely displayed colored web pages through a mobile phone. This helped bridge the gap between the smaller versions of the Internet used on earlier smartphones and the full Internet experience we enjoy today.

After the launch of the iPhone, several other Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices were released. HTC Touch and Touch Pro were HTC’s attempt to make Windows Mobile more user-friendly. Similarly, the BlackBerry Bold 9000 was a more modern BlackBerry research from Research in Motion, but even he shouted “everything works, not a game.” The BlackBerry Pearl 8100 and Curve 8300 were designed to (sort of) serve the mass consumer market. And it did not work for long.

In September 2008, Google responded with its own mobile operating system, Android OS, iOS. HTC Partner has created the first Android-based smartphone for T-Mobile, the G1, also known as Dream. This can be seen in the video above, in all the glory of the first generation.

The Apple iPhone has been marked by an annual hardware upgrade, as well as the flagship competitors. The iPhone 3GS, as well as the HTC Touch Pro2, HD2, Samsung Omnia II and Android based on Windows Mobile, HTC Hero, Motorola CLIQ, DROID and Samsung Galaxy – all this appeared in 2009. in 2009. Palm announced and released a successor to Garnet OS, webOS, in June 2009 along with the Palm Pre.

At that time, there were seven mainstream mobile operating systems: Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, webOS, iOS, and Android. However, over the next few years, Research in Motion’s hesitant attempt to attract consumers and the inability to innovate led the company to a rapid decline, from which it is still desperately trying to recover. Palm also faced great trouble in the new smartphone market and was eventually acquired by HP in April 2010. Microsoft abandoned Windows Mobile and struggled to draw public attention to its newly built Windows Phone 7 platform.

By 2012, Symbian almost disappeared; Palm OS and Windows Mobile were dead in the water, webOS and Windows Phone were driven out; BlackBerry’s market share has shrunk dramatically; and Android and iOS remained to rule the earth.

Over the years, one important thing has happened in the mobile services industry: consolidation. IOS and Android not only provoked the slow and painful death of almost all previous mobile operating systems, but also led to the disappearance of almost all smartphone form factors, with the exception of the candy bar.

The number of smartphones with physical keyboards has dramatically decreased over the course of several years, and each iteration has become increasingly dependent on the touch screen. Devices such as the HTC Hero, the HTC DROID Incredible, the HTC EVO 4G, the Motorola DROID X and the Google Nexus One have become increasingly popular. This does not mean that devices with a keyboard have ceased to exist. BlackBerry experimented with devices such as Torch, a touch-screen device with a vertical slide-out panel and a QWERTY bottom, and BlackBerry Style, a clamshell-style device. For three years, Motorola continued to release the popular DROID horizontal slider series, as well as devices such as Admiral and DROID Pro. HTC also made several sliders and vertical QWERTY. And BlackBerry continues to release smartphones with a keyboard to this day.

However, it is safe to say that almost all other form factors are dead. Physical keyboards are almost absent. This is the result of a change in the way people use phones, and the popularity of multimedia.

During this transition from physical keyboards, smartphones also grew in size. The very first Android and iPhone smartphones were equipped with low-resolution displays ranging in size from 3 to 4 inches. Today, the average display of a smartphone is from 4.7 to 5.5 inches with a resolution of 1080p – ideal for browsing the web and using various types of multimedia and games.

Today and the future

Most of what you see in the smartphone market today is in many ways similar. Very few manufacturers experiment with form factors and instead customize their internal equipment, packaging phones with impressive technical characteristics and concentrating on improving the individual components to make a whole.

Features such as speaker quality, battery life, build and design quality, and storage space are constantly monitored.

And although manufacturers try their best to distinguish them using software or special proprietary functions — such as UltraPixel, Pure View, Boom Sound, etc. — all one and the same: a giant rectangular plate that can vary in size, but provides in most cases a similar experience. ,

No matter how different we may consider LG G3, Nokia Lumia 1020, Apple iPhone 5s and all other modern smartphones, they are much more similar and not creative, like almost all smartphones of the beginning of an era.

The smartphone is also decentralized with accessories and wearable devices. But as far as we can see in the future, the smartphone will not change in the near future.

Modern operating systems, such as Jolla’s Sailfish OS, face incredible challenges. Russia’s YotaPhone 2 is probably one of the most far-sighted and “different” smartphones of the future, but this is just another disc.

What we should expect is more than the same different plates of different colors, with different corner radii and different internal elements. However, we can hope that the manufacturer will finally come up with non-standard solutions and begin to study form factors again in order to revive the situation. We have to wonder if we actually reached the pinnacle of smartphone design. Has the smartphone industry met with a design platform that has been chasing the notebook industry over the past few decades? Or will a young and rebellious manufacturer raise the industry in the next decade with a new design and form factor?

Time will tell, but if pop culture has something to say about it, we will offer fully transparent phones in the next few years. As a rule, I would not believe Hollywood too much, especially when it comes to technology. The 2013 film “Paranoia” should be convinced of this.

The way things move is admittedly monotonous and boring, at least as far as truly unique options are concerned. But, despite the fact that everything is constantly changing, adapting, improving and developing, the future of smartphones is certainly bright. Devices such as the LG G Flex, Samsung Galaxy Round, and even the concept of the Project Ara modular phones, although not as futuristic or spectacular as we first introduced, are paving the way for more ergonomic and exciting smartphones in the not too distant future.

Future smartphones may not have holographic keyboards or fully transparent displays, but carefully crafted children’s steps are more likely to remain for some time. How quickly all the different form factors of Windows Mobile disappeared was proof that very few of them were really useful in everyday life.

So, of course, modern smartphones may seem a bit boring, and things can start to look very similar. But the powerful and technological cork, packed in a tiny typewriter that fits easily into your pocket, is simply stunning. The gaming and graphics power of smartphones is approaching the power of specialized gaming consoles, and if it doesn’t hit you, not so much.

If we consider that smartphones have technically existed for 20 years, and since then they have gone so far, this should excite you very much for smartphones that are on the verge of bending.