The 20 Most Important Moments in Mobile Phone History - Page 2 | Maximum PC

The 20 Most Important Moments in Mobile Phone History - Page 2 Maximum PC
WoW! Apple got ranked 1 and 2.

5. 1973- Martin Cooper invents the first mobile phone
Reportedly inspired by watching Capitan Kirk use his communicator on Star Trek, Martin Cooper invents the first mobile phone for non-vehicle use while working at Motorola; uses it to call rival developer Dr. Joel S. Engel from Bell Labs. Cooper's mobile prototype went on to become the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, the first commercially available mobile phone, ushering in a new technology for the era. Of the momentous occasion, Cooper has said: "People want to talk to other people…Given a choice, people will demand the freedom to communicate wherever they are, unfettered by the infamous copper wire. It is that freedom we sought to vividly demonstrate in 1973." Hear, hear!

4. 1999 – NTT DoCoMo i-mode
NTT DoCoMo brings the first full internet service on mobile phones to Japan. Called i-mode, the service is a mobile internet (vs. a wireless internet) and provided a plethora of features such as web access, email and a packed-switched network to deliver data. i-mode users could access email, sports, weather, financial services and ticket booking via their mobiles by visiting any of i-modes 12,000 official sites. By 2005, i-mode had 46.8 million subscribers with users paying for both sent and received data. i-mode ushered in an era of mobiles as increasingly more than just phones – now they were palm-sized portals that allowed users to access their virtual lives.

3. 1992 –First commercial SMS message
The first SMS message is sent in the UK to Vodafone Director Richard Jarvis (it says: Happy Christmas), becoming a new way to communicate as well as a new way to utilize mobile handsets. With a new functionality, a new and annoying shorthand language emerged as users found texting an increasingly easy way to touch base. Especially useful in situations where a user couldn't answer a call (meeting, movie, concert) texting caught on rapidly among younger generations. In 2008, over 4.1 trillion text messages were sent with the world record being 182, 689 texts in a month (that’s one text every fifteen seconds). Led to Twitter, TextsFromLastNight.com, and marital trouble for Tiger Woods.

2. 2007 – iPhone.

I know, I know. But it's got to be mentioned. Innovation and design that demolished the mobile landscape, moved the power from the hands of service carriers to handset manufacturer, it's sleek, shiny, and incredibly intuitive. Upped the ante for mobile marketing. It's going to revolutionize everything. It's going to destroy civilization. It's undeniable. Ubiquitous. Something else that starts with U. It's a bloody cultural phenomenon. If the iPhone were a wrestler, it would be the Dominator. Rumored to have cost Apple $150 million to build, this handset had folks lining up around the block (literally) to get one and quickly found its way into the hands of everyone (Even Romeo Beckham has one and he's 9.) Let's give a quick shout-out to the ARM11 chip that enabled mobile processors to be fast enough to actually power this multi-touch screen beast.

1. 2008 – The App Store opens.
Talk about your game changers. After all: what is the iPhone without the App Store? Just a fancy handset. As of April 2010 there were roughly 185,000 third party applications officially available in the App Store, with over 4 billion total downloads. Competitors were quickly forced to follow suit – Palm's App Catalog, Google's Android Market, BlackBerry App World and the Windows Marketplace for Mobile all scrambled to fill in the gaps for their customers. Even the Nintendo DSi and Sony's Playstation Portable now have related stores. With the BBC declaring that Apps "are to be as big as (the) internet", Apple's succeeded in recasting the handset – and extending the price-point past the point of purchase.