Today, the smartphone is an integral part of our lives – personal, professional and social. We work, we communicate, we stay connected, we share, we live literally through the smartphone in our pocket. Do you know who is the first smartphone in the world to set the stage for a new way of staying connected to each other and the world? The term “smartphone” and which is the first smartphone in the world to be marketed The word “smartphone” as a term was widely used only in 1995, but in reality the first smartphone is older than the introduction of the term. The world’s first smartphone was created 3 years before the term was used and 15 years before Apple introduced the iPhone to the world. In 1992, the world’s first smartphone appeared on the market – Simon Personal Communicator. The device was presented at an exhibition in Las Vegas, and its code name was Angler. Its price was impressive and it was not available to everyone – at current prices around EUR 1,500. According to its data, about 50,000 units have been sold. The world’s first smartphone failed to become accessible and widespread, but opened the door to smartphones on the market and laid the foundations for the future of smartphones and modern communications.
Features and appearance of the world’s first smartphone IBM Simon Personal Communicator. Apart from differing from the modern smartphone in its appearance, the first smartphone in the world was naturally much poorer in features. Simon Personal Communicator is the first of its kind that allows not only for conversations and communication, but also for correspondence by email and fax. As features, the first smartphone in the world offered the ability to schedule appointments, notebook, clock, calendar, address book. A technological and modern advantage of this first smartphone was the ability to work with third-party applications with an additional memory card. In those years, however, the only such application was DispatchIt. This application is from the American company PDA Dimensions. The successor to this application are modern applications that allow remote control of the computer from the phone. The price of DispatchIt was impressive – over $ 3,000.
The color of the world’s first smartphone was black, it boasted a touchscreen, had a small antenna and a charger-type stand. The smartphone was offered complete with accessories, two nickel-cadmium batteries and a case made of genuine leather. The device looked rough, heavy and far from the fine and elegant modern smartphones.
The size of 200 x 64 x 38 mm and the weight of almost half a kilogram made the world’s first smartphone rough and heavy. The lack of an attractive appearance was far from a problem for the world’s first smartphone. It allowed written communication by e-mail and fax, something unseen in its day, which made it a valuable aid and its size did not matter to consumers.
Pictured: Prototype of IBM’s SweetSpot smartphone, demonstrated at Comdex 1992, to iPhone5 for comparison.
