Smartphone

A smartphone is a mobile phone with an advanced mobile operating system which combines features of a personal computer operating system with other features useful for mobile or handheld use. They typically combine the features of a cell phone with those of other popular mobile devices, such as personal digital assistant (PDA), media player and GPS navigation unit. Most smartphones can access the Internet, have a touchscreen user interface, with either an LCD, OLED, AMOLED, LED or similar screen, can run third-party apps, music players and are camera phones. Most smartphones produced from 2012 onwards also have high-speed mobile broadband 4G LTE internet, motion sensors, and mobile payment.

History

Early years

Devices that combined telephony and computing were first conceptualized by Nikola Tesla in 1909 and Theodore Paraskevakos in 1971 and patented in 1974, and were offered for sale beginning in 1993. Paraskevakos was the first to introduce the concepts of intelligence, data processing and visual display screens into telephones. In 1971, while he was working with Boeing in Huntsville, Alabama, Paraskevakos demonstrated a transmitter and receiver that provided additional ways to communicate with remote equipment, however it did not yet have general purpose PDA applications in a wireless device typical of smartphones. They were installed at Peoples' Telephone Company in Leesburg, Alabama and were demonstrated to several telephone companies. The original and historic working models are still in the possession of Paraskevakos.