History of Mobile Phones (Cell Phones)
The
inventor of the first modern portable handset is Dr Martin Cooper, who
was the general manager for the systems division at Motorola at that
time. In 1973, Dr Cooper made the first call on a portable cell phone.
He called his rival Joel Engel, head of research at Bell Labs, to give
him the latest news on how the competition between them was turning out.
The picture on left represents him and his first mobile phone.
The
first commercial handheld cellular phone was launched by Motorola in
1983, and weighed 28 ounces. The device could be purchased for a price
of ‘only’ $3,995!
In
the 1990s, 2G mobile system appeared, such as GSM, IS-136, iDEN and
IS-95. Along with the new way of information transmitting, a new trend
of small 100–200g handheld devices started replacing the brick-sized
phones. The change could be made thanks to technology advancement, which
included smaller batteries and more energy-efficient electronics. Above
it’s a picture of Nokia 100, the company’s first major cell phone
product, which was a 1G phone.
In
1995, Nokia 2110 was the first mobile phone in the world to use
vibrations, had dimensions of 148 x 56 x 25 mm and a weight of 236g. A
year later, its older relative, the 6110, was the first phone to have
‘Snake’ installed.
In
1999, the same Nokia launches 7110, the first terminal with WAP,
permitting Internet access directly from the phone. This one had pretty
much the same dimensions and weight as the 2110, and had another new
feature: an Infrared port. In the same year, Nokia also launched one of
the most popular mobile phones in the world: the 3310.
In
2007, Apple first introduced the iPhone in US, which is an
Internet-enabled multimedia mobile phone with functions such as virtual
keyboard and buttons, multi-touch screen and all the functions of a
regular camera phone and iPod.
The
third generation of mobile phones and standards is 3G, a service that
enables video conversations, broadband wireless data and others from
cell phones. After successfully integrating the 3G technology into
mobile phones, Apple released the 3G iPhone.
