Could you survive without your mobile phone? Cell phones became improbably advanced in a very relatively short amount of time, and therefore the potentialities for the future are seemingly endless.
The Genesis
Throughout the twentieth century, different inventions and predictions were made to determine what the future would be like. For example, hover cars and advanced spacecraft were some of the most iconic pieces of predicted technology.
Although hover cars still have yet to be refined some predictions of the twentieth-century are seen being used today, such as small portable communicators. Small portable communicators have enhanced the way people communicate with one another and are more commonly known as the cell phone. In 1973, a man named Martin Cooper and his team at Motorola built and demonstrated the first cell phone (CBS 1).
Many of the first cell phones were thought of to be “car phones,” as they were overlarge and cumbersome to carry around in a pocket or purse. However, in 1983, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x arrived on the market. although vast by today’s standards, it had been considered the first truly mobile phone because it had been small enough to hold.
The phone,
Little did they realize the huge impact that cell phones would soon make in the near future. Cell phones have evolved drastically and have become an essential and indispensable aspect of contemporary life. Since 1995, mobile phones have transformed into complex cellular devices to suit people’s busy lifestyles, while still staying true to its original aspect, communication.
The look of cell phones in 1995 differs immensely compared to the slim and sleek design we are used to. Phones of this era coincide with cordless house phones that people today are more recognizable with. Although they were considered to be mobile phones they were very bulky in size. The first few generations of mobile phones consisted of antennas to maintain a proper signal.
“You always have the trendsetters who aren’t scared of attempting new things and so everybody else follows,” says Patricia Grullon, an Industrial style educator at The Art Institute of fort lauderdale. “These trendsetters are key to make any product fashionable and popular.”
However, telephone use hadn’t spread to the general public yet.
“They were primarily used in the sales and business world, but not often for private use such as you see these days,” says Kreg Jones, an industrial designer and Industrial design instructor at The Art Institute of philadelphia.
Though the DynaTac and ulterior models were smaller, mobile, and ultimately cooler, they still had their faults. Bulky, luggable models just like the Nokia Mobira Talkman and the Motorola 2900 Bag Phone had longer battery lives and more talk time, making them more popular at the time. as the technology advanced, cell phone corporations puzzled out the way to pack all the features their customers needed into a smaller, portable, cheaper model.
A Shifting Purpose
Early cell phones were only for talking. Gradually, options like voicemail were added, but the main purpose was to talk. Eventually, cell phone makers began to realize that they could integrate different technologies into their phone and expand its features. The earliest smartphones let users access email, and use the phone as a fax machine, pager, and address book.
In recent years, the aim of the cell phone has shifted from a verbal communication tool to a multimedia system tool, usually adopting the name “mobile device” rather than being called a phone at all. we now use our cell phones more for surfing the web, checking email, snapping photos, and updating our social media status than really putting calls.
“Rapidly increasing software titles, higher screen resolution, and constantly improved interface make cell phones easier to navigate, and more fun to use. add to that an expanding capability which will hold as much memory as a computer would just a few years ago, and you can see why it’s an exploding market,” Grullon says.
The cell phones of these days are also replacing our other gadgets, like cameras and video cameras. when cameras were 1st introduced on phones, the images were low quality and the feature was thought of to merely be an additional.
“Now, we’re seeing a very quick shift to where customers do not even bother carrying their point-and-shoot cameras any longer, and just use their cell phones,” says Jamie Lendino, a tech journalist and senior mobile analyst for PCMag.com.
Modern day smartphones — the Apple iPhone specifically — changed everything that customers expect from their phones. The app market has transformed the phone into a virtual toolbox with an answer for nearly every need.
Changing form
It’s not simply the technology of the cell phone that has modified over time, the physical design has also gone through a rollercoaster of changes. Original car phones and bag phones were as giant as modern-day computers and even as heavy.
“Like computers, the cell phone over time has become drastically smaller,” Jones says. He remembers reviewing focus group results while working with Ericsson GE Mobile in the mid-90s. “Customer analysis showed that the phone was so small that the user interface was unacceptable.
although the phone may have functioned perfectly well, their opinion was partially driven by the perception that the phone was just too small.”
Eventually, customers’ perceptions shifted and they demanded a smaller, sleeker cell phone.
Just in recent years, cell phone designs have really began to become larger and less complicated, creating space for a bigger screen and fewer buttons. because phones have become mobile media devices, the most desirable aspect is a large, clear, high-definition screen for optimal web viewing. Even the keyboard is being moved out, replaced by a touch screen keyboard that solely comes out when you need it. the most obvious example of this is the Apple iPhone and subsequent competitors like the Droid models.
Future of the mobile phone
The cell phone has changed and developed thus rapidly within the past decade that it seems as though almost anything you’ll be able to imagine is possible for the future.
It almost seems impossible to think of a society without a mobile device. Most people have at least one form of mobile device, smartphones being the most popular. Tablets have become smaller and thinner over time and phones are becoming larger in size to take the place of a tablet. The future of mobile devices seems almost limitless. Wearable phone watches were once thought of as a futuristic concept, but has also become a reality since 2015.
According to Jones, the convergence of all our tech gadgets into one mobile device will continue to advance. He anticipates that “the majority of the hardware and the software can be moved to ‘the cloud’ and therefore the product will mainly be comprised of the input and the display.”
Lendino expects that the smartphone will eventually completely take over the market.