The Evolution of Cellular Phone into a Multi-Function Appliance

The Evolution of Cellular Phone into a Multi-Function Appliance

Shahan Tariq

University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila.

Graham Bell and Nikola Tesla set out to discover a means of communication over long distances. This paved the way for what was to come eventually, a wireless means of communication with a multitude of functions built in a device, small enough to fit inside a pocket. These devices, known as mobile phones nowadays have become a necessity of everyone, with the current estimates of their users being at almost 4.77 billion around the world. This number is expected to rise to over 5 billion by the end of 2019. The introduction of smartphones has widely contributed to this growth of the mobile phone market. As of 2014, 38% of all the mobile users were estimated to be smartphone users, the number being expected to reach 50% by the end of 2018 ("Number of mobile phone users worldwide 2013-2019 | Statista", 2017).

In the early days, cellphones weren’t as portable as we know them to be today. Many of these portable devices were referred to as “car phones” because they were too large to be carried in hand or in one’s purse. The first hand held portable device was introduced to the general public in the form of Motorola DynaTAC 8000x in 1983, which was small enough to carry around (Ray, 2015). This bulky innovation was followed by models of similar sort by Nokia and Motorola, with the improvement of battery life, earning them some popularity at that time. These phones were made for the sole purpose of communication, with features like voicemail to be added later on.

Later on, mobile companies ventured into the idea of integrating different technologies together in the portable devices, making them much more efficient in their functionality. Early cellphones integrated functions such as emails, fax, personal digital assistance functions such as calculators and such. These phones, although limited in function according to today’s standards were quite expensive given their time frame of introduction. The most notable of the phones that introduced PDA functions was the “Palm Pilot” introduced in 1997, for the price of 200-300$.

Equipped with functions such as hand writing recognition and virtual keyboard, it was one of the first phones to have an affordable price range for the average consumer.

Over the course of time, other functions such as hand held camera, music players and internet connectivity were introduced and integrated with the cellphones, making them a compendium of many devices. Nowadays, people don’t bother to carry their cameras or get separate music players for their endeavors. All is available in their cellphones, just a click away, making them a revolutionary invention. These integrations and changes also encouraged the mobile phone companies to change the structure of cellphones, making them slimmer and smaller, and most importantly the pricing spread over a large range. In the present time, cellphones are loaded with functions and applications for almost about anything, turning it into a toolkit gadget of sorts.