The first generation of mobile phone
The first smartphone came out 20 years ago, (date 11/26/1993) in COMDEX fair in Las Vegas
(USA), IBM had launched a phone called the IBM Simon, or also known by the code name
Angler. Despite being a mobile phone, the size of this phone was being equivalent to the Nexus
7 tablet today. With a weight of nearly 0.6 kg, it was easy to see that the user was not comfortable
to carry it around. Equipped with 16MHz processor speed, 1MB of RAM and 1MB of hard drive
storage, liked smartphones today, Simon was also equipped with a large touch screen 4.5-inch,
stylus writing support. But the difference was that the touch screen on Simon was monochrome
display and only worked on the operating system which was a variant of DOS called ROMDOS (Julian 2015).
In terms of features, Simon could be used to make calls, send and receive emails and even be
used to send or receive faxes, something that today's smartphones cannot. Besides, it was
equipped with applications such as address book, calendar, calculator, world clock, handwriting
recognition on the touch screen. Users could even download and install additional applications
from 3rd party developers, similar to today's smartphones.
Although Simon was launched in
1992, however until 8/1994, this smartphone was officially available on the market. At that time,
the price of the product was not cheap at all, 900 USD together with 2-year contract with
BellSouth Cellular network (Andrew, 2012). However, it was undeniable that Simon is the
forerunner of today's smartphones, though the concept of "Smartphone" premiere hadn’t
appeared at that time, however, the world has admitted that Simon was the first smartphone.
Above all, the launch of Simon was a great example to show the how fast has technology
developed just in the last 2 decades.
Palm was one of the names that brought up the smartphone concept. The first Pilot Devices
1000/5000 was debut on March 1996, three years after Apple launched the Newton Message
Pad which attracted attention, but not successful in the market, Palm (at that time part of the
4
U.S. Robotics separated) began to market PDA (personal Digital Assistants - personal assistive
devices). Pilot 1000 was sold for $ 299 USD have 128 KB of memory, together with 512 KB of
memory Pilot 500 (369 USD) were the first two models having a gray shell design, the same
basic design of current products. The duo had a screen resolution of 160 x 160 pixels, using the
device to sync with Windows (version 3.1 or 95) and two AAA batteries for operation from a
week or more. But those two are no longer present in the market and become "antiques" but
they are the main characters which paved the way for the revolution of smartphones (Yardena
2009).
In 1999: Ericsson R380 - the first smartphone officially unveiled. R380 users did not need to
carry multiple mobile devices since all these devices were encapsulated in this small phone.
Connected in over 120 countries internationally in 5 continents through WAP services provided
Internet information.
With this mobile phone, users could contact and work anywhere, at any
time. With a touch screen and graphical richness, it provided organizational skills and personal
contacts, and WAP services on R380 enabled users to receive or send email, or visit their Web
sites or even get information about weather forecasts, flight information and updates about life
as sports news, traffic information ... R380 uses the Symbian operating system, a system
designed specifically for wireless communication devices.
BlackBerry 5810 - Email & surfing capabilities was introduced in 2002. BlackBerry joint
smartphone markets with 5810 devices which allowed users to send emails and surf the Internet.
Before RIM released a new line of phones running BlackBerry 10 operating system, an expert
on mobile devices Sascha Segan has reviewed the landmark models of this label, marking a
certain number of changes in functionality and design, not necessarily the most successful
products, like Z10 was BlackBerry first device but it was not the most successful one
