Depiction of Cellphone’s Evolution

Cellphone's Evolution

In this day and age having a smartphone is extremely common thing that everyone around the world share. However, this new generation don't know that if it wasn't for Martin Cooper the inventor of the first mobile phone, cellphones wouldn't be where they are now.

 By 1973, the year where digital cameras, laptops, and the internet didn't exist. Martin Cooper was already working on the development of making the first cell phone working as a general manager for Motorola's Communications System Division. He claims he was inspired one day while watching Star Trek when he saw Captain Kirk use his communicator. He then worked on it till one day in 1983 he made his first phone call from his mobile phone to his buddy at AT&T and told him Motorola was going to change the game. The first mobile cellphone he made was the Motorola Dynamic 8000x that weighed about 2.5 pounds with just one single line coming in and a text only LED screen, being as big as it was battery life only lasted for about 20 minutes. It went for about four thousand dollars to consumers, and at that time only celebrities were able to really afford the phone. In his mind, he wanted everyone to own a phone in the near future.

Demand on cellphones was becoming more and more popular to the general public that by 1990 the 2G digital cellular network was invented and more cellphone tower sites were starting to pop up. Around this same time the first SMS was sent as well. Fast forward to 2001 Japan was the first country to have a 3G network while the US followed by 2003. According to Tim Brookes 3G transformed the mobile phone industry and enabled widespread mobile internet and transmission services like TV and radio.

Once these innovators from cellphone companies saw the fast progress they were making with 3G they were ready to get into the next step. They knew they were just getting better but even their highest speed wasn't attainable unless you were in the right spot at the right time. By this time SMS and the internet was very popular so they were trying very hard for to come with a faster network which was 4G LTE. Most cellphone companies today offer LTE or 4G LTE. Though they both are faster than 3G network. 4G offers consumers that stream TV or music faster speed while 4G LTE is a type of technology that delivers the fastest speed. The only problem is that it is not offered by every carrier and before purchasing a cellphone with that network you would have to check that carrier's coverage map and you would have to be in an area where they must support it according to Angela Stringfellow.

Not only did the technological part of the cellphone change but the physical design itself. cellphones back then were very bulky and heavy as the first computers. But like computers and laptops cellphones have gotten relatively smaller. Once cellphones became mainstreamed in the 90's customers complained about cellphones being too small and the buttons being too big that it interfered with everything else but with the time passing their perception changed and they requested smaller and sleeker phones. Now a day they have a huge variety when it comes to phones, most have larger screens with less buttons or no buttons at all giving it a more personal laptop feel to it.

With the cell phone in itself developing so rapidly, now we are able to use it while were driving hands-free by simply speaking into something we have now call Siri, we can ask it to send a text or a call, even as far as telling it play a song without even putting our hands on our mobile phones. We are also able to take professional pictures because of the advancement camera phones have made. Before we had to have a digital camera to be able to take quality pictures. Creators then started playing around megapixels and sensors to create better quality pictures in the cellphone. Lens quality, image signal processor and the camera software plays a huge part in the camera quality as well. And according to the book Converging Media Director Malik Bendyellow used his iPhone to finish shooting a movie he was filming because he had run out of money to pay for 8mm film. That's when they knew cellphones were going to be revolutionary.

Lastly, we can all agree that cellphones have come a long way from being a bulky one line text only screen, to where we were able to do basic things like send texts and take ok quality pictures till now where they are more sleeker and have less buttons and still be able to stream videos and music, take great quality pictures, download apps, facetime with one or multiple people at a time. So many great things we got out of the invention of the cellphone and the future holds a lot more.

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