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The Detroit Police Department began using mobile radios in their police cars. They used them to talk between cars, but it didn't work very well.
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The government used most radio frequencies for itself, but the air waves were still clogged up. The FCC was created to decide who got to use which channels.
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By the 1940's most government agencies, as well as the rich people, had mobile radios. They used them while they were on the go to talk to others.
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The first service created just for mobile phones opened up in St. Louis, MO, but the service didn't work well and it didn't last.
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The second attempt at car phones was a success. The equipment was large and heavy, but it worked, and that was an improvement over the past.
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Dr. Martin Cooper invented a portable hand-held phone that didn't need to be powered through a car. He was the first person to make a mobile phone call.
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It took ten years for the technology that Dr. Cooper invented to become available to the public. The first public cell phones were put out by Motorola.
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Motorola came out with a new design where the mouth piece flipped over the top of the keypad. It was the first flip phone.
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Developers in Europe came up with a way to send written messages over the phone. It was called texting.
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The smart phone could send and receive emails and messages, but it didn't have a speaker or microphone. This meant it needed a headset to work.
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A company called Sanyo made a phone that could snap pictures. Later the user could download the pictures to a computer to be printed.
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Apple released its first iphone and it changed the cellular industry. It featured a touch screen and allowed users to do almost anything they could do from a home computer, which basically changed the way people lived.
