The Journey From Cellular Phones To Smartphones

By Author: Kelly Burby
Total Articles: 349
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Phones took not more than one and half decade to capture the imagination of mainstream population. Yes, it was a few years ago when phones were envisaged as a PC-in-pocket like device and now it is a reality. Motorola’s StarTAC, the first ever clamshell mobile phone, shook the entire world and made the users to think and ask- why not more innovation in mobile technology? The small and sleek StarTAC quickly became a status add-on for lots of people.

Innovative and latest technology turned phones into the popularly known as smartphones and they have visibly changed everything. Cell phones have gradually been becoming smaller and aregetting loaded with interesting features and desired powers too. Today, we stand in a completely different era; that is powered withmobile technology and mobile application.

There was a time when people were not aware of the operating systems running their mobile devices but with the introduction of smartphones people have become more tech savvy and they want the best technology used in their mobile devices. Today’s major operating systems are iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry. ...
... Each of them has made the mobile world’s sales statistics up-side-down once in a while. Of course, they changed the world to a great extent. Technology turned the ‘Cellular Phone into Smartphone’.

Wireless communication was made possible in 1947. The then technology has been evolving, yet mobile telephony was limited to the phones installed in cars and other vehicles by early 70s. Soon a race began for developing the first ever handheld mobile phone and it ended on April 3, 1973 when Motorola showcased its first wireless handheld device to the world. It weighed 2.5 pounds and measured 9 inches long, 5 inches deep and 1.75 inches wide. It was too heavy to handle and too big to carry anywhere. The prototype showed by Motorola offered a talk time of 30 minutes while it took 10 hours to charge its battery again. The first cellular network was turned on in Chicago in 1978 and within one year, it had included 1300 customers. Soon UK, Mexico and Canada launched their 1G network. In 1987, Motorola launched the first Analog cellular phone DynaTAC 8000X.

In early 90s, second generation mobile phone systems emerged. GSM became standards in Europe and USA developed CDMA phones. Both used second generation mobile systems as well as digital transmission instead of analog. 2G mobile phone system also led to the concept of prepaid mobile phones. Second generation also introduced a new feature phone- Text Messaging or SMS (Short Messaging Service). The first SMS was sent in UK on 3rd December 1992. Soon, SMS became an alternative method of communication and was liked by youths across the world. With arrival of SMS services, people started to hope and get new features on their mobile devices. It was quite natural that people were wishing a mobile phone that could remove the use of computers in their lives and so it happened.

First mobile payment system was launched in 1998 where the phone was used to pay for the vending machines and car parking. 2G further evolved and in 1998, the first downloadable content on mobile device was available which the ring tone was. During 1999, DoCoMo launched its first fully functional mobile internet service in Japan. By 2000 services like advertising and news headline had also been launched.

Mobile service providers observed that more and more people were using data services (internet). In following years, demand of internet had been growing and industry began to work on the next generation of network technology known as 3G. NTT DoCoMo launched the first network with 3G at Tokyo in Japan in 2001. By the end of 2007, there were more than 295 million people on 3G networks globally.

It is now clear that at one point of time, 3G network would be crushed by the growing demand of bandwidth. Many companies have now started to work on 4G networks while a few have already begun to provide 4G network services.

Today’s mobile technology can remove the use of computer at both personal and professional levels; in most of the individual tasks like reading, writing, mailing, surfing, shopping, chatting, conferencing etc. But, desktops with big screens are still the prerequisite to productively handle many official operations. Maybe, a smart device could remove the use of PC in coming years.

To know more about samrtphone development you need to contact a right mobile application development company.