Smartphone

A smartphone is a type of cellular (cell) phone with technology that allows it to function as both a telephone and a computer. Users can make phone calls, send and receive text messages and e-mails, take photographs, browse the internet, play games, watch videos, and more. Smartphones typically have touchscreens and run on operating systems that allow users to download mobile applications (apps), which are software programs that perform various tasks.

Early History

Early cell phones, also called mobile or portable phones, emerged in the 1970s. The large devices were carried in bags and called "car phones" or "bag phones." In the early 1980s, the first true cell phones arrived on the market. They were much smaller than their predecessors were, but their short battery life prevented them from becoming popular. At this time, people mostly used cell phones for professional work in the sales and business industries; they were seldom used for personal reasons. As they grew in popularity, cell phone manufacturers developed smaller, sleeker, and more affordable phones with longer battery life.

The idea for what is considered the first smartphone—the IBM Simon Personal Communicator—was conceived in the 1970s. However, it was not actually developed until 1992. The device, which merged a cell phone with a personal digital assistant (PDA), became available for purchase two years later. A PDA was a device with a microprocessor used for storing and organizing personal information.

The Simon was able to send and receive calls, e-mails, faxes, and pages. It had a touchscreen display and features such as an address book, a calendar, a calculator, a clock, and a scheduler. It was able to run preinstalled applications that allowed users to display maps, news, stocks, and more. The device was large compared to modern cell phones. It was about eight inches long and two and a half inches wide. The Simon weighed nearly a pound, had a battery life of about an hour, and cost about $1,000. The device sold poorly and was taken off the market within months. However, it paved the way for modern cell phones to be developed in subsequent years.

While PDAs were first introduced in the 1980s, they did not become popular until the late 1990s. Some early PDAs did not have technology that allowed people to make calls with them, so people had to carry both PDAs and cell phones. The company Palm Inc. introduced the PalmPilot PDA in 1997. It allowed users to not only organize personal information but also connect their PDAs to computers and send and receive e-mails and messages.

Near the beginning of the new millennium, many cell phone manufacturers began to incorporate these new features into their phones. In 1996, Nokia introduced the Nokia 9000 Communicator, which had some modern smartphone features. It had a flip design that opened to a keyboard and navigation buttons. Although it was bulky, it offered many features such as word processing, internet searches, and the ability to send e-mails and faxes.

In 2000, the Ericsson R380, one of the first devices to be marketed as a smartphone, debuted. It was lighter and smaller than the Nokia 9000, and had a touchscreen and several preinstalled applications that allowed users to perform a variety of functions. Around this time, cell phone service providers such as Verizon began to offer wireless data plans paired with the sale of smartphones.

Research in Motion (RIM), a Canadian cell phone company known for its BlackBerry line of products, released its first smartphone offering, the BlackBerry 5810, in 2002. BlackBerry devices started as pagers but evolved to become a combination cell phone/PDA used mostly for business. The BlackBerry 5810 offered internet and e-mail capabilities, but it required a headset to use it as a phone. The company eventually added headset-free features to its later products, which became some of the most popular early smartphones. Within a few years, smartphones began to grow into a huge market for cell phone companies.

Smartphone Boom

In January 2007, the technology company Apple released the iPhone, which became enormously influential and helped accelerate the widespread adoption of smartphones around the world. The keyboard and most other physical buttons of earlier devices such as the BlackBerry line were replaced with a large touchscreen, where everything on the phone could be accessed with the swipe of a finger.

The iPhone had normal cell phone features, such as text messaging and a camera, while substantially advancing abilities such as internet browsing, video streaming, and more. Its iOS operating system made it the first smartphone to function like a mini computer. Its settings and functions were packaged in a simple, organized way that allowed users to seamlessly go from one app to another. The iPhone came with preinstalled apps such as the online music store iTunes but also allowed users to download apps, such as games, from third-party vendors.

The iPhone was credited with changing the purpose of smartphones from communication devices to multimedia devices geared toward personal use. As computer processing power advanced, people used smartphones not only to communicate with others but also to watch movies, play games, browse the internet, and more. As manufacturers competed to offer features such as high-quality cameras and media software, smartphones also began to replace other electronic devices such as cameras and video recorders for many consumers. Reflecting these changes, later generations of iPhones and many other smartphones tended to get larger, sometimes even blurring the lines between a smartphone and a tablet computer. Keyboards disappeared in favor of edge-to-edge touchscreens (sometimes referred to as the "slate" design) with high-definition displays.

While the iPhone and iOS revolutionized the smartphone market, they were not the only influential model or operating system. Notably, the technology company Google introduced the Android operating system in November 2007. While Google did not make its own phones at the time, Android (which required Google services for web searches, e-mail, videos, and other features) soon caught on with many major cell phone manufacturers such as Samsung, Motorola, and HTC. While Apple originally offered the iPhone solely through the provider AT&T, other phone manufacturers sold a wide variety of Android devices compatible with other service providers. The range of device designs and price points helped make Android the most popular smartphone operating system worldwide by the early 2010s.

Despite some efforts from other competitors, such as Microsoft, the iPhone and Android devices increasingly dominated the smartphone market through the 2010s. Apple steadily introduced new versions of the iPhone and iOS, and also opened its phones to providers other than AT&T. Android similarly went through numerous revisions and improvements, available on devices from numerous manufacturers. Google also released its first self-developed Android phone, the Pixel, in 2016. Smartphone components such as processor chipsets, cameras, and screens continually improved, in turn allowing ever more sophisticated applications and other functions, such as voice-enabled digital assistants and facial recognition.

By the early 2020s, Samsung and Apple were the two largest smartphone manufacturers in terms of global market share. Technological milestones included the development of smart flip phones, with two screens, by Motorola and Samsung in 2019, and the iPhone 14's Emergency SOS via satellite feature, which allowed users to connect with emergency services through direct connections with space satellites versus Earth-bound cell towers, starting in 2022.

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