Key moments in the evolution of cell phones

Pre-1973

Before 1973, the only mobile phones had wheels— you could only find them in cars.

April 3, 1973

Motorola engineer Martin Cooper — credited as the inventor of the cell phone — made the world's first public call from a mobile phone, while standing in front of reporters on a Manhattan street. Who did he call? Dr. Joel S. Engel, his professional rival at AT&T. Guess we know who won that round.

1984

Fans of TV's Saved By The Bell might find this gadget familiar. Zack Morris' infamous brick monstrosity was likely a Motorola DynaTAC, which became the first commercially available mobile phone in 1984. It weighed 0.8 kilograms and its rechargeable battery lasted about eight hours, according to a company information sheet from the 1970s. Zack Attack!

1993

The world's very first smartphone was part mobile phone, part personal digital assistant. The IBM Simon Personal Communicator was introduced in 1993 and had a stylus and touchscreen. It featured an array of software applications —which we now call "apps"—  such as an address book, calendar, appointment scheduler, calculator, world time clock and electronic notepad. It was also able to send and receive email, faxes and, since it was the 90s, cellular pages.

2000

With Y2K finally out of the way, engineers could focus on combining mobile telephony with mobile music listening. The Samsung Uproar was launched in 2000, becoming the first mobile phone to play MP3 music files. It boasted 64 MB of memory, meaning you could play one whole hour of tunes.

November 2000

The new millennium also ushered in the age of camera phones. Sharp's J-SH04 was the world's first mobile phone with a built-in camera. It had a 110,000-pixel CMOS sensor and a 256-color display. Unfortunately for tech-heads outside of Japan, the J-SH04 was only available in that country; the U.S. had to wait until 2002, when the Sanyo SCP-5300 was released, before they could channel their inner camera phone shutterbug.

2003

Remember BlackBerry? The Canadian company formerly known as Research in Motion, which revolutionized push email, unveiled its first integrated phone in 2003. The BlackBerry 6210 was the first device to offer email, texting, a web browser and a messenger service, along with the functionality of a phone.

2007

After years of speculation, Apple launched its first iPhone. In the U.S., thousands of people waited in lines days before the release to get their hands on their very own device. One of the iPhone's revolutionary features was the multi-touch touchscreen, which allowed users to control the device using multiple fingers on the screen.

2017

More than five billion people around the world were reported to have a mobile phone connection —that's two-thirds of the world's population! The announcement came from GSMA Intelligence, a research group that tracks unique mobile subscribers in real time.