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Alexander Graham Bell obtains a patent for the telephone
Though there is a debate about who actually created the telephone, Bell is the one who received the patent. The other candidates are Elisha Gray (contemporary of Bell) and Antonio Meucci (a few decades earlier, in the 1850s, he managed to communicate his bedroom to his office).
Originally, Bell only wanted to improve the telegraph by allowing it to transmit numerous messages at the same time, but he ended up inventing the first telephone. -
The first telephone lines are established
They connected Boston and Massachusetts and were created by Bell's own telephone company. -
Model 302
Bell Labs, with the aid of Henry Deyfuss, developed the first phone which is currently considered modern. The main feature that it introduced was the device that was used to both talk and listen to the interlocutor at the same time. The ringer was inside the telephone, instead of being a separate component and the disk allowed to dial any number connected to it. -
Trimline
This model was created by AT a telephone producer company who realized that the telephone could be massively sold by adapting it to the domestic ambit. This ideology would greatly influence the following companies that tried to improve the comfort while talking and erase the limitations of the device. This model implemented the number buttons in the same part that was used to both talk and listen. The major challenge during that time was talking without holding the telephone with the hands. -
Motorola StarTAC
This mobile phone was incredibly popular and helped to introduce the concept of cell phones in the society of the 1990s. The little screen over the keypad allowed the users to see what numbers or letters they had keyed. The design was called Clamshell due to the possibilitie of flipping the two sides of the device te protect the phone in case it was damaged. Though the limitations of the screen, it could send and receive SMS messages, and was the first phone that incorporated a vibration system. -
iPhone
The iPhone would put an end to the keypad to introduce a touch screen, which would be implemented in the next phones from this point up to the present. The apps that could be downloaded, the development of the SMS system, which allowed users to communicate by written messages, and the inclusion of a camera, apart from the growing internet that would led the society to its current state, made this phone one of the most successful and influents in the history. -
Conclusion I
The different technologies developed to improve the telephones from the Bell's one to the current devices has been focused on the comfort and the multiprogrammation, or the possibilitie of performing different tasks at the same time and with the same phone. Nowadays the communication between telephon lines is almost flawless, but the industry seems to be stangnant since the iPhone invention, an just creates more and more apps to the same OS. -
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Conclusion II
It is not likely it will be another great revolution in the way we communicate worlwide. However, that is fine. The main issue the telephone had to fix when it was created was allowing non trained people to communicate with a system other that the telegraph. Now, almost every citizen in the civilizated countries have a cell phone, and thanks to the Internet the connection around the world is possible. The telephone has evolved firstly to help people communicate, and then to entertain them.
