Early years
The first smartphone was the IBM Simon; it was designed in 1992 and shown as a concept product[10] that year at COMDEX, the computer industry trade show held in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was released to the public in 1993 and sold by BellSouth. Besides being a mobile phone, it also contained a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail client, the ability to send and receive faxes, and games. It had no physical buttons, instead customers used a touchscreen to select telephone numbers with a finger or create facsimiles and memos with an optional stylus. Text was entered with a unique on-screen "predictive" keyboard. By today's standards, the Simon would be a fairly low-end product, lacking a camera and the ability to install third-party applications. However, its feature set at the time was highly advanced.
The Nokia Communicator line was the first of Nokia's smartphones starting with the Nokia 9000, released in 1996. This distinctive palmtop computer style smartphone was the result of a collaborative effort of an early successful and costly personal digital assistant (PDA) by Hewlett-Packard combined with Nokia's bestselling phone around that time, and early prototype models had the two devices fixed via a hinge. The communicators are characterized by clamshell design, with a feature phone display, keyboard and user interface on top of the phone, and a physical QWERTY keyboard, high-resolution display of at least 640x200 pixels and PDA user interface under the door. The software was based on the GEOS V3.0 operating system, featuring email communication and text-based web browsing. In 1998, it was followed by Nokia 9110, and in 2000 by Nokia 9110i, with improved web browsing capability.
In 1997 the term 'smartphone' was used for the first time when Ericsson unveiled the concept phone GS88,the first device labelled as 'smartphone'.[13]
Symbian
In 2000, the touchscreen Ericsson R380 Smartphone was released.[14] It was the first device to use an open operating system, the Symbian OS.[15] It was the first device marketed as a 'smartphone'.[16] It combined the functions of a mobile phone and a personal digital assistant (PDA).[17] In December 1999 the magazinePopular Science appointed the Ericsson R380 Smartphone to one of the most important advances in science and technology.[18] It was a groundbreaking device since it was as small and light as a normal mobile phone.[19] In 2002 it was followed up by P800, the first camera smartphone.[20]
Also in 2000, the Nokia 9210 communicator was introduced, which was the first color screen model from the above Nokia Communicator line. It was a true smartphone with an open operating system, the Symbian OS. It was followed by the 9500 Communicator, which also was Nokia's first cameraphone and first Wi-Fiphone. The 9300 Communicator was the third dimensional shift into a smaller form factor, and the latest E90 Communicator includes GPS. The Nokia Communicator model is remarkable for also having been the most costly phone model sold by a major brand for almost the full life of the model series, costing easily 20% and sometimes 40% more than the next most expensive smartphone by any major producer.
In 2007 Nokia launched the Nokia N95 which integrated a wide range of multimedia features into a consumer-oriented smartphone: GPS, a 5 megapixel camera withautofocus and LED flash, 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity and TV-out. In the next few years these features would become standard on high-end smartphones. The Nokia 6110 Navigator is a Symbian based dedicated GPS phone introduced in June 2007.
In 2010 Nokia released the Nokia N8 smartphone, the first device to use the new Symbian^3 OS.[21] It featured a camera that Mobile Burn described as the best camera in a phone,[22] and satellite navigation that Mobile Choice described as the best on any phone.[23]
Palm, Windows and BlackBerry
By the strict definition, smartphones are distinct from PDA based devices running early versions of operating systems such as Palm OS, Blackberry OS or Windows CE/Pocket PC. [1] However, later versions of these systems integrate cell phone features with PDA features and support third-party applications. Today, high-end devices running these systems are often branded smartphones.
In early 2001, Palm, Inc. introduced the Kyocera 6035, the first smartphone to be deployed in widespread use in the United States. This device combined the features of a personal digital assistant (PDA) with a wireless phone that operated on the Verizon Wireless network. For example, a user could select a name from the PDA contact list, and the device would dial that contact's phone number. The device also supported limited web browsing.[24] The device received a very positive reception from technology publications, but the product line never became widespread outside North America.[25]
In 2001 Microsoft announced its Windows CE Pocket PC OS would be offered as "Microsoft Windows Powered Smartphone 2002."[26] Microsoft originally defined itsWindows Smartphone products as lacking a touchscreen and offering a lower screen resolution compared to its sibling Pocket PC devices.
In early 2002 Handspring released the Palm OS Treo smartphone, utilizing a full keyboard that combined wireless web browsing, email, calendar, and contact organizer with mobile third-party applications that could be downloaded or synced with a computer.[27]
In 2002 RIM released the first BlackBerry which was the first smartphone optimized for wireless email use and had achieved a total customer base of 32 million subscribers by December 2009.[28]
In February 2011 Nokia announced a plan to make Microsoft Windows Phone 7 its high end smartphone operating system, reducing MeeGo to a research platform while still keeping Symbian for mid range and low range products.[29]
iPhone
In 2007, Apple Inc. introduced its first iPhone. It was initially costly, priced at $499 for the cheaper of two models on top of a two year contract. Initially lacking the capability to install native applications beyond the ones built-in to its OS, many reviewers considered the originally-released device to be more akin to a featurephone than a smartphone.[30] It was one of the first mobile phones to be mainly controlled through a touchscreen, the others being the LG Prada and the HTC Touch (also released in 2007). It was the first mobile phone to use a multi-touch interface, and it featured a web browser that Ars Technica then described as "far superior" to anything offered by that of its competitors.[31] A process called jailbreaking emerged quickly to provide unofficial third-party native applications. Steve Jobs publicly stated that the iPhone lacked 3G support due to the immaturity, power use, and physical size requirements of 3G chipsets at the time.[32]
In July 2008, Apple introduced its second generation iPhone with a lower list price starting at $199 and 3G support. Released with it, Apple also created the App Store with both free and paid applications. The App Store can deliver applications developed by third parties directly to the iPhone or iPod Touch over Wi-Fi or cellular network without requiring a PC for installation. With the introduction of the App Store, the iPhone gained one of the two key smartphone features that it lacked: the capability to officially install and execute additional native applications. The App Store has been a huge success for Apple going from over 500 applications at launch[33] to 65,000 applications and over 1.5 billion downloads in the first year.[34] The App Store hit 3 billion application downloads in early January 2010,[35] 10 billion downloads by January 2011,[36] and 15 billion downloads, of over 425,000 applications, in early July 2011.[37]
In June of 2010, Apple introduced iOS 4, which included APIs to allow third-party applications to multitask,[38] and the iPhone 4, which included a 960×640 pixel display with a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch (ppi), a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash capable of recording HD video in 720p at 30 frames per second, a front-facing VGA camera for videoconferencing, a 1 Ghz processor, and other improvements.[39] In early 2011 the iPhone 4 became available through Verizon Wireless, ending AT&T's exclusivity of the handset in the U.S.,[40][41][42] and allowing the handset's 3G connection to be used as a wireless Wi-Fi hotspot for the first time, to up to 5 other devices.[43] Software updates subsequently added this capability to other iPhones running iOS 4.[44][45]
Android
The Android operating system for smartphones was released in 2008. Android is an open-source platform backed by Google, along with major hardware and software developers (such as Intel, HTC, ARM, Motorola and Samsung, to name a few), that form the Open Handset Alliance.[46] The first phone to use Android was the HTC Dream, branded for distribution by T-Mobile as the G1. The software suite included on the phone consists of integration with Google's proprietary applications, such as Maps, Calendar, and Gmail, and a full HTML web browser. Android supports the execution of native applications and a preemptive multitasking capability (in the form of services). Third-party apps are available via the Android Market (released October 2008), including both free and paid apps.
In January 2010, Google launched the Nexus One smartphone using its Android OS. Although Android has multi-touch abilities, Google initially removed that feature from the Nexus One,[47] but it was added through a firmware update on February 2, 2010.[48]
According to Gartner in their report dated November 2010, total smartphone sales doubled in one year and now smartphones represent 19.3 percent of total mobile phone sales. Over late 2009 and 2010 Android's smartphone market share increased very rapidly.[49]
Smartphone sales increased in 2010 by 72.1 percent from the prior year, whereas sales for all mobile phones only increased by 31.8 percent. Smartphones make up 19 percent of all mobile phones.
In the fourth quarter of 2010, Android surpassed Symbian as the most common operating system in smartphones, with 32.9 million units sold versus 31.0 million. Android-equipped phones sold seven times more than in the prior year due to customers' increased preference for a device that can access websites while bypassing traditional computers.[52] According to Canalys, Google, which offers its software to phone makers for free, has raced to the top of the smartphone market and also surpassing Apple iPhone. In Q1 2011 Google Android market share was 35 percent and increased significantly from 10 percent last year, while Nokia Symbian dropped to 26 percent from 46 percent last year
Concerning the Xperia Play smartphone, an analyst at CCS Insight said in March 2011 that "Console wars are moving to the mobile platform".[54] In the same month, the HTC EVO 3D was announced by HTC Corporation, which can produce 3D effects with no need for special glasses (autostereoscopy).[55] The HTC EVO 3D was officially released on June 24, 2011.
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