What the word means
“Smartphone” has no single agreed definition. A common working one is a mobile phone that can also run programs, handle email or web pages, and be extended with new software. By that test, several devices could claim to be early. By a stricter test, requiring a full app store and a touchscreen designed for fingers, the answer comes much later. This article follows the main stages and notes where the claims are disputed.
Organizers meet phones
In the 1980s and early 1990s, small electronic organizers and early handheld computers appeared, which stored contacts, calendars and notes. At the same time, mobile phones were getting smaller. Combining the two was an obvious idea, and several companies tried it.
The device most often named as the first is a prototype IBM showed in 1992, which went on sale in 1994 as the Simon. It had a touch-sensitive screen, a calendar and address book, and could send faxes and email over a mobile network. It sold in modest numbers and was withdrawn after a short time. Because it is so often given the title, it has its own treatment in the IBM Simon story, and it is worth noting that other prototypes and products from the same period are sometimes compared with it.
Another landmark was the Nokia 9000 Communicator, released in 1996. It opened like a clamshell to reveal a keyboard and a wide screen, and it could handle email, fax and basic web access. It was bulky and expensive, aimed at business travelers. Some sources call it the first smartphone, while others reserve the title for later devices. Both claims rest on a definition, not on a fact that can be checked.
The word itself seems to have come into use in the late 1990s. Ericsson used it for a concept product, and the Ericsson R380 of 2000 was marketed under the label. It ran the Symbian operating system and had a touch screen that worked with a stylus, but its software was largely closed to outside programs.
Email, keyboards and the business phone
In the early 2000s, a separate line of devices grew from pagers and organizers. Palm, with its Treo line, combined a phone with the Palm operating system. BlackBerry, which had made email pagers in the late 1990s, released phone models in the early 2000s. These devices had physical keyboards and were prized for email. They made the idea of a phone for work familiar to professionals, particularly in North America and Europe.
Meanwhile, Japan’s mobile market followed a different path. NTT DoCoMo launched i-mode in 1999, a service that delivered web-style content, games and email to phones on a network designed for data. It shows that something very like a smartphone economy appeared in Japan before it spread elsewhere, even though handsets were different from those that later dominated.
At this time, “smart” phones often depended on small screens, slow data connections and limited software. Typing on a numeric keypad was slow, and many handsets could not install programs.
Touchscreens for fingers
The next change was a new kind of screen. Earlier touch phones generally used a stylus and pressure-sensitive screens. Apple announced the iPhone in January 2007 and released it that June. It used a capacitive screen controlled by fingers, supported several touches at once, and lacked a physical keyboard. The first version did not include an app store and had some features that competing devices already offered, but its interface and web browser were widely seen as a large step.
In 2008, Apple opened its App Store, which let outside developers sell programs directly to users. The first Android phone, released through T-Mobile in the United States in October 2008, followed with its own store. By the early 2010s, the model of a slab-shaped touchscreen phone with downloadable software had become standard, and many older designs, including physical-keyboard phones, lost ground. Several earlier makers lost market share, and some were bought or left the business.
These developments relied on advances in other fields, including touchscreen interfaces, camera sensors for camera phones, and satellite positioning in the form of GPS receivers that were small enough for a phone. Faster mobile data, from third-generation networks and then fourth-generation ones, made web browsing and video practical.
Why firsts are slippery
A few points help when comparing claims.
- Whether a device counts depends on what the speaker requires: touchscreen, email, third-party software, internet access or a specific operating system.
- Prototypes and products differ. A device shown at a trade fair in one year may not be sold for another two.
- Marketing language was loose. Companies used “smart” and “communicator” for different reasons, and the label was often applied to older devices afterward.
For these reasons, it is safer to say “an early smartphone” than “the first smartphone,” and to name the features meant. The iPhone is often described as the product that defined the modern smartphone, which is a narrower and more defensible claim than saying it was the first.
Where the story goes next
The social and economic effects of pocket computers are covered in the account of the mobile revolution, and the way networks made all this possible is told in the history of the mobile phone. For the present purpose, the main point is that the smartphone grew in steps, with contributions from organizer makers, phone makers, email device makers and software companies, rather than appearing in one moment.