The Smartphone is a device that has caused accelerated changes in our technological development, our culture and our society in general. Let's review together the Smartphone evolution through the ages.
Smartphone evolution: the great revolution of the XNUMXst century
La Smartphone evolution it can go hand in hand with our consideration of the evolution of humanity. The crucial moment in which we go from having the voices of others in our pockets to having the entire universe in our hands is definitely one of the great moments of our species. Suddenly, all the possibilities were opened, they were dynamized to unsuspected limits and they were made instantaneous. And much of the physical barriers that prevented our communication across borders were largely vanished.
If this all sounds like an apocalyptic prophecy, it's because in a way it is. It is difficult to think of a previous historical moment that had as many implications for social transformation as the current moment. And if we tend to reduce all this to colorful applications, memes or photos of cats, it is perhaps as a protection mechanism against realities that seem unfathomable to us.
A Smartphone has gone from being a science fiction curiosity within the reach of privileged elites to being a necessity even for the humblest worker in the market. It is a true leap forward in every imaginable sense, carried out in just three decades, from the beginnings of mobile telephony in the 90s to the present of remote contact during the pandemic scenario of 2020-2021.
Now, how can we define what a Smartphone is in itself? A Smartphone is a mobile device that displays the amazing features of a phone extended to its limits. It is an integrated chip phone that incorporates an entire operating system, like any computer in use, with a wireless Internet connection and, therefore, the obvious ability to manage social networks, search and check user emails.
Not forgetting that it can also deal with countless applications, software, storage systems or quality digital cameras. Contrary to that famous watch from the movie Spy Kids (2001), capable of performing all kinds of miraculous acts except telling the time, a Smartphone opens up the cyber world while still linking us to the most traditional telephone format. The best of both worlds.
Evolution of the Smartphone through the ages
The evolution of this essential device for our era impresses us by the speed of the cycles that make it up. More and more rapidly, we see equipment with increasing capacity and power being dwarfed, flattened and lightened. The brevity of the story is not really consistent with all that has been advanced in terms of technological development. So let's review in awe this quick and in-depth history of the Smartphone.
If you have a special interest in everything related to Smartphone devices, you may find it useful to visit this other article on our website dedicated to exposing the characteristics of a Smartphone. Follow the link!
Although we usually think of smartphones as an exclusive product of the 90st century, due to the prominence they have reached in recent years, the first traces that we must follow to find the first Smartphone date back to the XNUMXs.
In the early years of this historic decade, the IBM company released what can be considered the first smartphone: the 1994 IBM Simon Personal Communicator. It was a thick, high-cost, low-battery-life black brick that stood out from the market in less than two years.
But its resources were amazing for its time. It had a green LCD screen, managed by means of a digital pen, through which the user could send e-mails, set agendas or connect to computers and faxes. 1 MB of memory and storage characterized its processor.
These early days of the Smartphone are completed with the Nokia 9000, another heavy device with the same connection and email resources as the IBM Simon but with an advance in its memory, 8 MB, larger LCD screen and full QWERTY keyboard. Short-lived too, it was later considered by its creators as a five-year advance over the usual market.
The year 1999 opened the way for the new millennium with the appearance of the famous Blackberry 850, the first Smartphone experience of the generation born in the 90s and the first device that openly bore this name. With limited HTML navigation, two batteries, and basic email, it looked more like a pager than a smartphone.
2000 years
Soon the Blackberry brand would incorporate more advanced models such as the 2003 Quark, with an integrated telephone, a rectangular screen and the first lists of applications. In parallel, the Ericsson R380 from 2000 offered an innovative small size for its time, with an antenna and a monochrome touch screen covered with a lid full of keys.
After several models of Blackberry and Ericsson, the great earthquake in the Smartphone world would occur in 2007: the Apple company led by Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone. The technological leap was truly revolutionary. The device had a processor with its own operating system (iOS), 128 MB RAM, internal memory between 4 GB and 16 GB, depending on the model, good resolution screen, 2 megapixel camera, earphone, speaker and connection. to Internet. In this first model, all the advances that would change the market forever were compacted.
But parallel to the iPhone world, another industry monster was brewing, the Android system developed by the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). Its first appearance came with HTC Dream (2008), a product with WiFi, Bluetooth and digital camera. But the great moment in which it appeared as a direct rival to Apple systems was with the launch of the first Samsung Galaxy S (2010), the lightest device so far that processed graphics at maximum speed. The powerful Nexus 4 from 2012, a direct collaboration between Google and LG, ended up positioning Android software strongly within the industry.
The following year, Apple would fight back with its iPhone 5S, a dual-core product with 64 bits in its architecture, between 16 and 64 GB of storage, 1 GB of RAM, a new iOS 7 operating system, WiFi, GPS and unlocking through fingerprint. A huge success endorsed by the new model released years later, the iPhone 6 Plus, with small improvements in speed and battery life.
News
We've come a long way from the black hulks of Nokia and IBM. The agile, small and flat products of Apple and Google remain in eternal rivalry, while in the middle Asian models such as Xiaomi or Huawei have been aggressively introduced, questioned for their security against government espionage as much as Android has been since the revelations of 2013. It is difficult to know who will prevail in this context of huge sales, untimely exits from the market and technological development of terrifying speed.
For now, this video justly summarizes all this evolution of models in the Smartphone circuit. It is dizzying to see only the parade of logos, colors, shapes and sizes that we have witnessed over the years.
So far our article on the Smartphone evolution, one of the fundamental human products to understand the changes of our era. See you soon.