THE STORY OF THE PORTABLE PHONE FROM A CELLPHONE TO A SMARTPHONE

If I asked you the essential piece of technology in your life, what would it be? I am sure 99% of the people would have an identical answer.

We can live without the air conditioner,
We can survive without a TV,
Cooking without an oven is also possible.
And a lack of steaming iron can be compensated.

What cannot be substituted is the need for a phone, or as we more commonly address it, a SMARTPHONE.

So, have you ever wondered how this gadget came to being? A gadget that we cherish more than our limbs. I say this because people always get their expensive smartphones insured, but never their limbs.

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One day I got to wondering about the first-ever phone, and that made me aware of the history of the portable phone. Here is the gist of it.

THE CREATOR OF THE IDEA

The earliest stages of the development in the mobile phone spectrum coincided with the evolution of radio engineering.
Eric Tigerstedt, an inventor from Finland, is considered to have the first patent ever of a portable phone that was both thin and foldable along with a carbon microphone. This happened in 1917.
The world wars had put a halt to all form of development. It was only after 1945, with the end of World War II, that the creation of mobile phone became an important area for the inventor of that time.
A result in the same was not seen until the late 21st century.

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THE FIRST EVER PHONE

For a mobile phone to be operational and affordable for the general public, four things were needed to be in sync with each other. These were;

•        the meta-oxide semiconductor,

•        large scale integration technology,

•        information theory,

•        and lastly cellular networking.

Once all four of these were developed, it was not long before the first operational cellphone came into existence.
The feat of creating the first cellphone goes to Motorola, which is an American company that still produces stellar smartphones. The creators, John F Mitchell and Martin Cooper, demonstrated the same in the year 1973.
The phone was nothing like what we are used to, it was a gigantic device that weighed much heavier than today’s phone at a whopping 2.2 kilograms. This was a kind of prototype, named DynaTAC, which was never sold commercially.
It was only after the creation of the 1G network by a Japanese company, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in 1979, the Nordic Mobile Telephone in 1981 and other networks from several countries that paved the way for the first commercially available cellphone.
This was another Motorola and Martin Cooper invention. It was called the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x launched in 1984.

Motorola DynaTAC

•        It could be charged to the full battery it about 10 hours, which would give the user a talk time of about 30 minutes.

•        The phone could store about 30 contacts.

•        It has an LED display that allowed to dial and recall the stored numbers.

•        It was priced at $3,995 in 1984, which today would be more than three times in value.

The features may not seem much compared to the phones we use today, but the DynaTAC is still an epitome in the mobile phone innovations. Although I would like to say that it was not affordable by any means, to get that kind of money a commoner would need loans found in the UK with no credit check and no guarantor.

THE LAUNCH OF THE SMARTPHONE

After the 90s wave of smaller and more compact by phones than the Dyna, the Nokia 1100 is still a gem. The 21st century saw the evolution of the smartphone.
The smartphone is the more advanced version of its predecessor. This is a phone that;

•        is powered by a more sophisticated operating system, like the android and iOS;

•        can perform all multimedia functions like music, camera, videos along with gaming;

•        can perform multiple functions at once.

IBM Simon

You would be surprised to know that the phone that is regarded as the first smartphone with a touch screen was launched well before the 2000s in August of 1994. It was called the IBM Simon Personal Communicator.

•        This was a phone that was 8 inches in length.

•        The display was 4.5*1.5 inches with 160*293-pixel LCD.

•        It had a PSRAM of 1 MB, with storage of 1MB as well that could be expanded to 2MB.

•        It could receive and make calls like a standard phone.

•        Apart from these, Simon could also make use of emails, faxes and pager by sending and receiving them.

The IBM Simon was discontinued after a year, but it managed to sell over 50,000 units in that period. The user considered this phone to be an exceptional example of what the human mind can create.

WINDING UP WITH THE PRESENT

Today, there are thousands of options in terms of smartphones in the world. The frontrunners of this technological game are Apple, Samsung and Motorola. Their iPhone 12, Note 10 and Moto Razr are a trendsetter in this world, the trends that are followed by other smartphone producers. Although these are a little expensive, financers like AOneCredit can help you in getting one with ease.
There is no shortage of features in these phones, from getting crystal clear photographs on the iPhone to getting an actual pen to write notes on the Samsung Note 10 and retaining the battery for over 20 hours in the Moto Razr, the cellphone had come a long way from the DynaTAC.

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Author Bio-

The features that we can use on our phones seem pretty necessary to us, but to the first developers, these were too far-fetched. Read to know about the predecessors of your current phone.

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