Things to Know about the World’s First Smartphone

Ashley | 07 - 05 - 2020
Things to Know about the World’s First Smartphone

Smartphone- A device that has literally changed our lives. It has become one of the most important essential parts of our lives. It is called the era of smartphones as right from communication and learning to maintaining businesses, smartphones play a major role.

But do you know when was the first smartphone invented? Let’s have an in-depth look at the world’s first smartphone.

When was the smartphone invented? The first smartphone was named “Simon Personal Personal” or “Simon”. It was invented by IBM and Bell South. When did smartphones come out? The release date of the world’s first smartphone was somewhere in 1992 and it was first introduced in COMDEX,  one of the world’s largest exhibitions that were once held in Las Vegas. It was introduced with a code name “Angler”. Even though the first smartphone, Simon was introduced in 1992, it was made available to the public only in 1994.

1. When Was the First Smartphone Released for Consumer’s Use?
  • A. 1993
  • B. 1994
  • C. 1995
  • D. 1996

The cost of Simon was around $1100 which was exorbitant and unaffordable by most people. Mostly business people preferred buying Simon as they thought it could help them in their businesses. Simon was big and was around 8 inches long, 1.5 inches thick, and 2.5 inches wide. It weighed around 1 pound and featured memory of 1 MB ROM and 1 MB PSRAM. Even though the cost was $1100 some people wanted to buy it just to experience the advancement of technology in their hands. Later, the price was decreased to $900 but people were asked to sign a contract with Bell South. The world’s first smartphone, Simon was available only in the US.

The Smartphone can be used with fingers just by touching but a stylus was provided with it for easier access. There were also some built-in apps such as calculator, calendar, phone book, and to-do list. The major advantage of the smartphone was the feature of mail and fax, these two features were the main reasons why people showed interest in buying Simon. Interestingly, Simon had a feature called “predictive typing” which could predict the word you were about to type with the number of letters you typed. This feature was mainly added to save screen space. Simon came with a NiCad battery, but unfortunately, it only lasted for 1 hour when used constantly and about 8 hours when unused. This was the major reason for its failure. Simon was also featured in a movie called “Net”.

Simon could survive in the market for only 6 months and only 50,000 pieces were sold as it was costly and had low battery life.

Here is a short Smartphone history,

  • In 2001, many smartphones were introduced with a feature to connect with a 3G network. The price of the smartphones was low that is around $300 to $700
  • In 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the first-ever iPhone. This invention literally classified people into two, Android users, and iPhone users. The iPhone was a hit as it allowed people to easily browse. Two types of iPhones were introduced with storage capacities of 4GB and 8Gb and they also had good battery life.
  • HTC Dream was released a year after the iPhone was introduced, in November 2008. It was the first-ever smartphone that was shipped with an Android operating system. It was named HTC Dream but if you lived in the United States you would call it the T-mobile G1. It had a horizontal sliding and featured a multi-touch screen and a 3-megapixel camera.

The growth of smartphones is rapid, they evolved to have more battery life and more additional features. Now around 3.5 billion people in the world use smartphones in 2020.

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