History of Telecommunications

Touch Tone

Jan 1, 1963

AT&T created the touch tone system, which allowed callers to call by only pressing a button on the phone!

First Mobile Phone Call

Apr 3, 1973

Answering Machines Were Used

Apr 18, 1984

Answering machines began to be widely used in the 1980's. Before this, the phone would ring until someone picked it up.

First Commercial Cell Phones Available

Apr 18, 1984

The first mobile phones were available to regular people.

First Companies begin to offer Caller ID

Dec 1, 1988

First Flip Phone

Apr 18, 1989

Motorola began to sell the StarTAC, the first flip phone. They eventually sold over 60 million of that model!

First Commercial Dial Up Internet Service in the US

Apr 18, 1989

Computers used the phone line, called Dial Up, to access the internet.

First Web Browsers for Consumers

Sep 1, 1993

NCSA Mosaic is the first widely used web browser in the US. It allowed regular people to go online.

First widely used web businesses begin.

Apr 18, 1995

Amazon and eBay are started.

First Smartphones

Apr 18, 1996

Palm released the Pilot 1000 and Pilot 5000. These PDA's (personal digital assistants) allowed people to sinc their computer to phone and recognized handwritten text on the phone.

Google Search

Apr 18, 1998

Google becomes one of the first big search engines. It allows users to search the whole web.

iTunes

Apr 18, 2003

iTunes begins to sell music online as an alternative to illegal downloading sites. This also allows users to easily sync their music to their ipods. The first ipod was released in 2001.

First iPhone

Jan 1, 2007

Apple releases the iPhone. Within a few months, almost 20% of all smartphones were iPhones.

First Android Phone

Nov 18, 2008

The G1 had a slide out keyboard and limited touchscreen.

First iPad

Jan 18, 2010