49 Fun Facts About Smartphones

Which device, released in 1994, is retrospectively described as the first true smartphone?

The IBM Simon could send faxes and email, but a battery lasting about an hour and a steep price held sales to about 50,000.

Which wireless technology found in smartphones is named after a 10th-century Danish king?

Bluetooth began as a placeholder: Intel's Jim Kardach borrowed the name of King Harald Bluetooth, who united Denmark, because the tech would unite PCs and phones.

Which Motorola engineer made the first public call from a handheld cellphone, on a Manhattan street?

Martin Cooper dialed his chief rival, Joel Engel at AT&T's Bell Labs, to tell him he was calling from a real handheld cellphone.

Which 'brick' phone of the early 1980s was the first handheld cellphone sold to the public?

The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X needed ten more years after the 1973 prototype call to clear technical and regulatory hurdles before it went on sale.

Which iPhone's 'antennagate' reception problem led Apple to hand out free cases?

The iPhone 4's steel rim doubled as its antenna, so gripping the lower-left corner could weaken the signal and drop calls.

What does 'SIM' stand for in the SIM card used by mobile phones?

Subscriber Identity Module: the card holds the identity the network uses to recognise you, so moving it moves your subscription to another phone.

Who unveiled the first iPhone at Macworld on 9 January 2007?

Steve Jobs announced three products, a widescreen iPod, a phone and an internet communicator, then revealed they were one device.

Which Microsoft CEO laughed in 2007 that the iPhone was 'the most expensive phone in the world'?

Steve Ballmer said business customers wouldn't want it because it had no keyboard, which made it a poor email machine.

With which US carrier did Apple secretly develop the original iPhone at an estimated cost of $150 million?

Cingular, later AT&T Mobility, gave Apple free rein after the disappointing Motorola ROKR collaboration.

After scratches appeared on a plastic prototype screen, which company did Apple ask for the first iPhone's glass?

Corning revived a toughened glass left on its R&D shelf, and it shipped on the first iPhone before being branded Gorilla Glass.

After cutting the 8 GB iPhone from $599 to $399 in 2007, what did Apple give angry early buyers?

Store credit: after 'hundreds of emails' about the $200 price cut, Apple gave early iPhone buyers $100 to spend at its stores.

What reason did Apple give for leaving the charger out of iPhone 12 boxes?

To cut waste and emissions: Apple said the slimmer box let 70% more iPhones fit on each shipping pallet.

Android is based on a modified version of which kernel?

Linux: in 2017 Google got long-term Linux kernels supported for six years, not two, because the old window almost ran out before Android phones shipped.

Which Android co-founder had earlier created the T-Mobile Sidekick?

Andy Rubin's startup first built an operating system for digital cameras, then switched to phones as camera growth slowed.

What made Google's Android team scrap its BlackBerry-like prototype phone in 2007?

Apple unveiling the iPhone made one Android engineer think 'We're going to have to start over', and the team switched its focus to a touchscreen prototype.

For years, major Android versions were named alphabetically after what?

Desserts and sweets: from Cupcake to Pie, until Google dropped the names because English dessert words weren't 'inclusive' for users worldwide.

The Play Store, launched in March 2012, replaced which earlier app store name?

Android Market was folded into Google Play with Google Music and the Google eBookstore, so one store now sold apps, songs and ebooks.

Which 2016 smartphone game did the US Holocaust Memorial Museum ask visitors to stop playing inside?

Pokémon Go put capture spots at real landmarks, memorials included, so players hunted creatures inside the museum until Niantic removed such sites.

Which photo app, launched only for iPhone in 2010, did Facebook buy for about $1 billion in 2012?

Instagram began as Burbn, a location check-in app, until its founders cut it back to the photo sharing its users liked most.

Which Samsung phone was recalled worldwide in 2016 because its batteries could catch fire?

The Galaxy Note 7's replacement units, fitted with batteries from a different supplier, caught fire too, so Samsung stopped making it.

In the 2011 Apple-Samsung patent fight, which Samsung phone did Apple set beside an iPhone 3GS in court images?

The original Galaxy S picture had been shortened and narrowed to match the iPhone 3GS, and Samsung accused Apple of misleading the court.

Which Canadian company, founded in Waterloo, Ontario, created the BlackBerry?

Research In Motion renamed itself BlackBerry in 2013, as the brand it had made famous lost ground to the iPhone and Android.

Why was the BlackBerry pager given its name?

Its keys resembled the fruit: the tiny buttons looked like a blackberry's drupelets, and thumb-typing on them became a corporate email habit.

Which US president kept using a specially secured BlackBerry while in office?

Barack Obama insisted on keeping his BlackBerry after his inauguration despite security objections, so he used a model specially enhanced by the NSA.

Which operating system, descended from Psion's EPOC and used mainly by Nokia, led smartphones until the end of 2010?

Symbian led until the end of 2010, the year Samsung and Sony Ericsson abandoned it as iOS and Android took over.

In February 2011, Nokia announced it would adopt which company's operating system as its primary smartphone platform?

Microsoft's Windows Phone won out because CEO Stephen Elop said Android gave Nokia too little room to stand out from rivals.

Which Microsoft music-player brand launched in 2006 to take on Apple's iPod?

Zune never made much impact, trailing even SanDisk's Sansa in US share, and Microsoft stopped making the players in 2011.

In 2017 Apple admitted slowing some older iPhones with worn batteries in order to prevent what?

Sudden shutdowns: Apple quietly throttled iPhones with worn batteries to stop them switching off, and US states later said it had hidden the problem.

Which hugely popular game came pre-loaded on the Nokia 3310?

Snake II belonged to a Snake series whose success on Nokia phones revived snake games and signalled a new era of mobile gaming.

The world's first automatic analogue cellular network was launched in 1979 for car phones in which city?

Tokyo's car-phone service, run by NTT, later spread across Japan and was the world's first full-scale cellular system.

What did the first SMS text message say when it reached a Vodafone boss at a 1992 party?

Merry Christmas: engineer Neil Papworth sent it from a computer, and the recipient, Richard Jarvis, never replied.

Which country launched the first GSM network, Radiolinja, in 1991?

Finland's former prime minister Harri Holkeri made the network's first official call, and Nokia later admitted part of that day's show ran over an analogue backup line.

What does the 'G' stand for in mobile network names like 4G and 5G?

Generation: first-generation networks were analogue, and the second generation's switch to digital brought encrypted calls and text messages.

Who is credited with the well-known late-1990s DoCoMo emoji set for i-mode?

Shigetaka Kurita designed 176 icons influenced by manga and emoticons, and New York's Museum of Modern Art later added the set to its collection.

Which emoji did Oxford Dictionaries name its 2015 Word of the Year?

Face with Tears of Joy was the most used emoji of 2015, and Oxford said it embodied the 'playfulness and intimacy' of emoji culture.

What nickname did smartphones with unusually large screens earn in the early 2010s?

Phablets blended 'phone' and 'tablet', but the word faded as nearly every flagship phone grew that big.

Which 2016 phone was the first iPhone without a headphone jack?

The Apple iPhone 7's jackless design was mocked by Samsung and Google, and both later dropped the jack from their own phones.

Which iPhone introduced Touch ID, a fingerprint sensor built into its home button?

The iPhone 5s had barely gone on sale when Germany's Chaos Computer Club fooled its Touch ID sensor with a fake fingerprint copied from a photo.

Which hit game did Apple pull from the App Store in 2020 after its maker added its own payment option?

Fortnite's maker, Epic Games, had added direct payments to dodge Apple's 30% cut, and it answered the ban by suing Apple.

Which sensor, fitted to Samsung flagships from 2012 and iPhones from 2014, helps a phone estimate altitude?

A barometer tracks changes in air pressure, so the iPhone 6's Health app could show how many flights of stairs you had climbed.

Which sensor lets a smartphone act as a digital compass?

Accelerometers and gyroscopes handle screen rotation, and an RGB sensor tunes screen colour.

Which phone line did Google launch in 2016 to replace its Nexus phones?

Pixel phones went after the iPhone at premium prices, and critics said Nexus fans hoping for a cheaper Google phone would be disappointed.

Why did the iPhone 15 swap Apple's Lightning port for USB-C?

To meet an EU law: Apple had warned that forcing one type of connector on phones would stifle innovation, but the bloc made USB-C mandatory.

At its 2007 iPhone keynote, which accessory did Apple say nobody wants?

The stylus had come with Apple's own Newton handheld, which Apple scrapped in 1998, and the iPhone was built for fingers instead.

Which 2003 Nokia device tried to be both a mobile phone and a handheld game console?

The N-Gage had its speaker and microphone on its edge, so callers held it side-on against the cheek, mocked as talking into a taco.

Which fashion house teamed up with LG on the first phone with a capacitive touchscreen?

The LG Prada reached shops before the iPhone, and an LG executive later claimed Apple had stolen the idea from it.

Which Chinese phone maker lost the right to preinstall Google's Play Store after US sanctions?

Huawei, then the world's second-largest phone maker, also sold its budget Honor brand in 2020 to help it survive the sanctions.

What was the first Android phone, a horizontal slider released in October 2008?

HTC Dream kept a slide-out keyboard because Android's team doubted people would take to typing on a screen without physical keys.

What replaced the home button when Apple dropped it with the iPhone X?

Swipe gestures took over, since dropping the button let the iPhone X's screen stretch nearly edge to edge, without the old chin below it.