50 free Smartphones trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This smartphones trivia quiz covers the pocket computers that replaced cameras, music players, maps and pagers in barely two decades. The easy questions handle the basics: who unveiled the first iPhone and when, which company makes Android, what the App Store and Google Play are, the phone famous for being indestructible and the game called Snake. From there it moves through the pre-history: Martin Cooper's 1973 call on a Manhattan sidewalk, the $3,995 Motorola DynaTAC, the IBM Simon that is now called the first true smartphone, the Nokia Communicator, BlackBerry's push email and Symbian's brief reign. The harder half is for gadget fans: why Android was announced in a subway station, the dessert names and why they stopped, the price of the first iPhone, how many apps launched the App Store, the year the headphone jack began to vanish, the drupelets behind BlackBerry's name, Nokia's 'burning platform' switch to Windows Phone, the Galaxy Note 7 recall, the origin of emoji and the Oxford Word of the Year that was not a word at all. If you enjoyed our Apple, Google or computing history quizzes, this is the deep dive on the device in your hand. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for smartphones, the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia and the other devices and companies named before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which device, released in 1994, is retrospectively described as the first true smartphone?
The IBM Simon
It had a 4.5-inch touchscreen, could send faxes and email, sold 50,000 units and had a battery that lasted about an hour.
Q 02Which company manufactured the IBM Simon after Motorola turned the job down?
Mitsubishi Electric
Motorola feared IBM could become a rival phone maker; BellSouth sold the finished product on its analogue AMPS network.
Q 03Which engineer made the first public call from a handheld cellphone on a Manhattan sidewalk on 3 April 1973?
Martin Cooper
He worked for Motorola and phoned his rival at Bell Labs; he is known as the father of the handheld cellphone.
Q 04How much did the Motorola DynaTAC, the first commercially available handheld cellphone, cost in 1984?
$3,995
It took ten hours to charge, stored 30 numbers on an LED display, and had waiting lists despite its weight.
Q 05How much talk time did the DynaTAC offer on a full charge?
30 minutes
Consumer demand was strong regardless, and there were waiting lists.
Q 06The Nokia 9000 Communicator of 1996, one of the earliest smartphones, ran on which processor?
A 24 MHz Intel i386
Its clamshell design opened to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard, and it cost £1,000 at launch.
Q 07Who unveiled the first iPhone at Macworld on 9 January 2007?
Steve Jobs
Development had begun in secret in 2005 as Project Purple 2, and the phone reached US shops on 29 June 2007.
Q 08What did the 4 GB first-generation iPhone cost at its US launch in June 2007?
$499
The 8 GB model was $599, and both required a two-year contract; Apple cut prices sharply that September.
Q 09With which US carrier did Apple secretly develop the original iPhone at an estimated cost of $150 million?
Cingular Wireless
Cingular, later AT&T Mobility, gave Apple free rein after the disappointing Motorola ROKR collaboration.
Q 10How big was the first iPhone's multi-touch display?
3.5"
It had just four physical buttons and a ringer switch, and its finger-friendly screen needed no pen.
Q 11How many days did it take Apple to sell its one millionth iPhone?
74
It sold 270,000 in the first week in the US, though European launches were described as sluggish.
Q 12How many applications were available when Apple's App Store opened on 10 July 2008?
500
The count peaked near 2.2 million in 2017 before Apple began purging old and 32-bit apps.
Q 13Which company developed the Android operating system?
It bought Android Inc. in 2005 for at least $50 million, a purchase later called its 'best deal ever'.
Q 14Android is based on a modified version of which kernel?
Q 21Which Samsung phone did the company have to recall by the millions in 2016 because of exploding batteries?
The Galaxy Note 7
Most phones use lithium-ion or lithium-polymer cells for their high energy density.
Q 22The Apple-Samsung 'patent war' began when Apple claimed which Samsung phone copied the iPhone 3GS?
The original Galaxy S
Sony, HTC and others were also drawn into a wave of smartphone patent litigation.
Q 23Which Canadian company, founded in Waterloo, Ontario, created the BlackBerry?
Research In Motion
Its first BlackBerry, launched in 1999, was a two-way pager on the Mobitex network.
Linux
The company persuaded the Linux Foundation in 2017 to extend long-term kernel support from two years to six.
Q 15Which Android co-founder had earlier created the T-Mobile Sidekick at his company Danger?
Andy Rubin
Android Inc. started out in 2003 building an operating system for digital cameras before pivoting to phones.
Q 16In what unusual venue was Android introduced to the press on 23 September 2008?
A New York City subway station
Larry Page and Sergey Brin were among those presenting; the early prototype had looked like a BlackBerry until the iPhone appeared.
Q 17For years, major Android versions were named alphabetically after what?
Desserts and sweets
The first two were internally called Astro Boy and Bender; the practice ended with Android 10 in 2019 because the names were not 'inclusive'.
Q 18The Play Store, launched in March 2012, replaced which earlier app store name?
Android Market
The rebrand pulled the company's Music, Movies and Books services under one roof.
Q 19Since which year has Android been the most used smartphone operating system in the world?
2011
It now has the largest installed base of any operating system on Earth, with billions of users.
Q 20Samsung's first Android phone, launched in June 2009, began which product line?
Galaxy
At the time Samsung's flagship was the Windows Mobile-powered Omnia; the new line arguably took Android mainstream.
Q 24Why was the name 'BlackBerry' chosen from about 40 candidates?
The keyboard buttons resembled the fruit's drupelets
Marketing firm Lexicon Branding came up with it, and the device pioneered push email and 'thumb typing'.
Q 25Which organisation became BlackBerry's biggest customer thanks to its reputation for secure communications?
The US government
The BlackBerry Pearl of 2006 and BlackBerry Messenger later pulled in mainstream consumers too.
Q 26Which operating system, descended from Psion's EPOC and used mainly by Nokia, was the world's most popular smartphone OS until the end of 2010?
Symbian
It held 67% of the global smartphone market in 2006 before iOS and Android overtook it.
Q 27In February 2011, Nokia announced it would adopt which company's operating system as its primary smartphone platform?
Microsoft's Windows Phone
Its Lumia range followed, and by 2013 the Lumia 520 alone accounted for most Windows Phones sold.
Q 28Windows Phone 7, launched in October 2010, replaced Windows Mobile and which Microsoft music-player brand?
Zune
Its tile-based look came from Microsoft's Metro design language.
Q 29How many units did the Nokia 3310, launched in 2000, sell worldwide?
126,000,000
Its cult reputation for being 'indestructible' spawned endless drop-test videos, and a modernised version appeared in 2017.
Q 30Which hugely popular game came pre-loaded on the Nokia 3310?
Snake II
Its other three games were Pairs II, Space Impact and Bantumi.