With the end of the year fastly approaching I thought it might be fun to share a little bit of mobile phone history. We were being introduced to the concept as far back as the mid 1960’s when Agent Smart started talking on his cool shoe phone. Or maybe you remember the communicator on the original Star Trek series.
The first real mobile phone was invented by Martin Cooper in 1973, and it is said that the Star Trek communicator was his inspiration. I hope someone was also inspired by the transporter so we can get beamed to grandma’s in sunny California in January.
In the 1980’s, young actor Zack Morris sported a mobile phone that weighed in at nearly two pounds and cost around $4,000. Can you imagine? Two Pounds and large as the shoe phone sported by Agent Smart.
The 1990’s brought some great technologies. The first text message was sent that read, “Happy Christmas,” movies were showing young characters on phones, and Working Woman Barbie came with her own mobile phone. The 90’s also brought us Bluetooth, the first flip phone, and the Blackberry.
At the new millennium we were obsessed with smaller phones. I guess the two-pounders were getting difficult to carry in our pockets. The last decade brought us the camera phone, American Idol text message voting, ringtones, and customized colors.
It wasn’t until 2007 that the iPhone was introduced to us and the industry is still reacting to that. Android came along in 2008 as well as the iPhone App Store.
When did you use your first mobile phone? Mine was for work in 1997. The company I worked for made me use it. I remember we paid dearly by the minute so I had to be quick on my calls. And I also remember not liking it. My first phone was the popular Nokia back in 2002 and was followed by the Razr, iPhone, and now the Motorola Atrix.
Check out this cool infographic from Product Development Technologies and let us know when you purchased your first mobile phone and what you thought about it!
