I phone

phones

By 1052663

  • The Original Phone

    Alexander Graham Bell spoke into his device and said to his assistant, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” In doing so, Bell launched the telephone era with the first bi-directional electronic transmission of the spoken word. At least that is how the story typically goes.

  • Rotary

    The rotary phone became popular. To dial, you would rotate the dial to the number you wanted, and then release. Based on my limited interaction with rotary dial phones, this must have been incredibly tedious. As push-button phones gained popularity in the 1960s and ’70s, the rotary dial phone thankfully began its slow death.

  • Portable phones

    Portable, or cordless, phones were the phone equivalent of the TV remote. You were no longer physically attached to your phone’s base station. Beginning in the 1980s, portable phones were like a small-scale cell phone. You could talk on your phone anywhere in your house. Now that you can talk on your phone anywhere in the world, portable phones seem quaint. But at the time, a well-placed portable phone could save you a trip across the house.

  • Motorola StarTAC

    The Motorola StarTAC was the first successful flip phone, and in many ways, the first successful consumer cell phone. Introduced in 1996, Motorola eventually sold 60 million StarTACs. Weighing in at just 3.1 ounces, and combined with its innovative clamshell design, the StarTAC was a milestone in the trend toward smaller and smaller cell phones.

  • BlackBerry

    With their advanced email capabilities, BlackBerry Messenger, and physical keyboards, BlackBerry smartphones were the ultimate business phone. When the iPhone was announced in 2007, many BlackBerry fans scoffed at its lack of a physical keyboard. Now that touchscreen smartphones have proved themselves worthy, BlackBerry has fallen rapidly, with many failed attempts at touchscreen smartphones, and is currently struggling to survive.

  • Motorola RAZR

    The Motorola RAZR represented the culmination of the flip phone. mobile phone companies continued their push for smaller and smaller phones. With the RAZR, Motorola perfected the flip phone design. Announced in 2004, Motorola would eventually sell 130 million RAZRs. However, the RAZRs popularity rapidly declined in the face of a new generation of touchscreen smartphones.

  • iPhone and Android

    When the iPhone was introduced in 2007, Apple brought the smartphone to the masses. With its intuitive touchscreen, intelligent sensors, and sleek design, the iPhone has been an incredible success. While initially lacking some basic features such as copy-and-paste, the iPhone has consistently improved with annual updates to both its hardware and software and runs a mobile-optimized version of OS X, the company’s desktop computing operating system

  • Palm Treo

    With the Treo, Palm expanded its popular PDA line to become one of the first smartphones. The Treo looked very similar to Blackberry’s phones, with a tiny keyboard at the bottom. The Treo ran Palm OS, and like many leading phones at the time, began to lose its appeal after the introduction of touchscreen smartphones. In 2009, the Treo was replaced with the Palm Pre, Palm’s failed response to the iPhone.