The Cellphone

1970s

the first mobile phone call was made 45 years ago Shrinking size, expanding powers. Ever since the first mobile phone call was made 45 years ago, phones and computing have advanced hand-in-hand.

The accepted birthday for the cellular telephone is April 3, 1973. Standing near a 900 MHz base station in midtown Manhattan, undoubtedly surrounded by bell bottom jeans and crocheted midi-dresses, Motorola employee Martin Cooper dialed the number of Bell Labs in New Jersey.

We don’t know exactly what was said on this call. We do know that Cooper used the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, a product that wouldn’t go on sale to the public for another decade. By 1979, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) introduced the first ever (analog) 1G phone service in Tokyo.

1980s

The first mobile phone worthy of the name. The 1989 Motorola MicroTAC 9800x, with a flip-up mouthpiece and retractable antenna, weighed less than one pound and was designed to fit in a shirt pocket.

Although NTT gave Japanese consumers the first access to mobile phone service, it was several years before the technology moved into the mainstream worldwide. On October 13, 1983, Ameritech Mobile Communications became the first company to launch a 1G phone network in the US, starting with Chicago. On March 13, 1984, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x of Cooper’s call finally went on sale—for $3,995.

The 8000x wasn’t very mobile—it weighed almost two pounds and took ten hours to charge for thirty minutes of talk time. By April 25, 1989, the Motorola MicroTAC 9800x showcased true mobility with its (relatively) compact size and flip-up mouthpiece. Of course, they both still had antennae, and could only be used to place calls.

1990s

Introduced in 1994, IBM’s Simon was ahead of its time, equipped with a touchscreen, calendar, address book and email capability—all before most people had even heard of the World Wide

Appropriately for a decade that saw the reunification of Germany and the official formation of the European Union, the first GSM call was made in 1991. The GSM standard established a common network across Europe and provided users with uninterrupted service even when they crossed borders. The first GSM phone, the Nokia 1011, which went on sale November 9, 1992, also introduced text-messaging.

1994, it was a bit early to the game. You could send email (and faxes!), sketch on its touchscreen with the included stylus, and consult the calendar, world time clock, and address book. But you couldn’t surf the web—after all, NCSA’s Mosaic browser had only appeared one year earlier and home computers were just starting to adapt.

2000s

When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone at Macworld 2007, the world was more than ready. Courtesy Jonathan Turetta.

NTT DoCoMo launched the first 3G network in Japan on October 1, 2001, making videoconferencing and large email attachments possible.

Steve Jobs revealed the first iPhone. Previous phones relied on keypads and could only navigate a watered-down version of the internet. The iPhone’s large touchscreen could flip through websites just like a desktop computer, all while looking sleeker than anything consumers had ever seen before.

2010s and beyond

The smartphone journey isn’t over. The increased bandwidth of 5G networks heralds a technological revolution, promising real-time telemedicine, on-demand virtual and augmented reality, and sleekly integrated smart cities.

The 5G networks predicted for 2020 promise even faster speeds and increased bandwidth that experts think may enable life-changing technologies like real-time telemedicine, virtual reality training, and truly smart cities.

With that kind of connectivity, a smartphone might become your next (and only) work computer. Scientists are even experimenting with building a supercomputer out of smartphones.

I liked this book a lot. It was very informative and the text was presented in an easy to understand way. When reading this if i forgot info it was made so that you can easily remember. For each decade there was a tab that you can use to flip to that section. Each section was easily understood and there weren’t hard words. It started from the beginning and made it all the way to 2010s which i find great considering how old most books are. When the book explain again to make sure i actually knew what was be read i found that very considerate. At the end the book had small little fun facts and they were easy to answer and very fun. ( )