The ten greatest breakthroughs in smartphone design
Technology evolves at such a rapid pace that it’s often difficult to keep track of where we’ve come from.
Twenty years ago, Nokia amazed the world by releasing the world’s first monochrome display screen, replacing the formerly ubiquitous lines of black-on-green alphanumeric text.
Ten years ago, Android 2.2 was one of several operating system alternatives to Apple’s early iOS, in an age where people still used proprietary BlackBerry and Nokia interfaces.
And while it’s easy to look back on the age of 3G and downloadable ringtones with a mixture of nostalgia and pity, these early handsets defined today’s models.
These are some of the greatest breakthroughs in smartphone design, which have shaped the devices we buy now and the ways we use them.
The great pioneers
- Touchscreens.
- Internet access.
- Cameras.
- BlackBerry email.
- The iPhone.
- App stores.
- Fingerprint scanners.
- Wireless charging.
- USB-C connectivity.
- Curved screens.
Remarkably, it’s been almost thirty years since IBM’s Simon demonstrated what could be accomplished with a touchscreen.
However, it was the Apple iPhone – of which more in a moment – that first popularised the concept of capacitive touchscreens controlled by fingers rather than buttons.
Back in 1996, Nokia’s 9000 Communicator offered access to the burgeoning World Wide Web years ahead of the competition.
Its clamshell design presented a narrow monochrome screen powered by sluggish WAP, but every emerging technology has to start somewhere.
Sharp launched an integrated camera phone in late 2000, with a tiny 0.1MP sensor capable of producing thumbnail-sized images.
Unfortunately, the J-SH04 was only available in Japan. However, Samsung quickly introduced similar technology, and the seeds were sown for Instagram and selfies.
Until the BlackBerry 6210 arrived in 2003, email and mobile phones were completely separate technologies.
As well as turning phones into workplace tools, the 6210 took the concept of push notifications mainstream, and saw IMAP webmail replacing the old Post Office Protocol (POP).
It’s hard to overstate how ground-breaking Apple’s first smartphone was, arriving in an age of QWERTY keyboards and ABC1 DEF2 dial pads.
The iPhone did away with such crude interfaces, and even today’s BlackBerry handsets now have capacitive screens alongside their iconic QWERTY pads.
Apple and Android both released app stores within a few months, changing the way smartphones were designed and used forever.
The simplicity of standalone apps remains one of the greatest breakthroughs in smartphone design, transforming everything from gaming and communicating to web browsing.
Today, we take biometric security for granted, but Toshiba first introduced it in 2007 on their G500 and G900 handsets.
This was four years before Apple debuted similar technology, and it ultimately led to modern phenomena like through-the-screen fingerprint recognition.
One day, cables and charging leads will seem prehistoric, and we can thank mobile computer brand Palm for pioneering wireless battery top-ups.
Samsung were also early adopters of wireless charging technologies, which have recently settled on a universal standard known as Qi (pronounced ‘chee’).
If your home contains unused cables and proprietary connectors, you’ll remember the frustration of charging mobile phones before USB-C launched in 2015.
This double-sided lead is the latest iteration of the timeless USB cable, providing dependable high-speed charging, connectivity and communications between phones.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge demonstrated that phone screens don’t have to be rectangles of reinforced glass.
It began a process of experimentation which directly led to modern-day folding handsets and bendable screens, which are likely to become increasingly prevalent in future.