Once upon a time, some engineers decided to change the course of history. Thinking of a way to make communication more efficient and easier, they had the brilliant idea of creating a system that could enable communication between wireless phones. The idea was not bad at all, but the technology of the 
time did not help much. It all started in 1947, however, the ideas did not go much beyond theory and little practice.
The real story of the mobile phone, also known as the cell phone, began in 1973, when the first call from a mobile phone to a landline was made. It was from April 1973 that all the theories proved that the cell phone worked perfectly, and that the cellular phone network suggested in 1947 was designed correctly. This was a not very well-known moment, but it was certainly a fact marked forever that completely changed the history of the world.
Several manufacturers conducted tests between 1947 and 1973, however, the first company to show a working device was Motorola. The name of the device was DynaTAC and it was not for sale to the public (it was just a prototype). The first model that was commercially released in the US (some other countries had already received devices from other brands) was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, still in 1983, that is, ten years after the first test was conducted.
The first generation of cellular telephony began with not-so-portable cell phones, most of which were developed for installation in cars. Most cell phones weighed on average 1kg (yes, you read that right) and had absurd dimensions of almost 30 centimeters in height.
Of course, this was just the beginning, as the trend was to reduce physical size and increase functions. The price of cell phones was obviously astronomical, especially since not everyone had a car to carry these “monstrosities”.
The 2nd generation was coming
Right at the beginning of the 90s, manufacturers were ready to launch new devices, with an acceptable size and a weight that would not harm anyone’s back. The 2nd generation would not only bring new devices but would also adopt new communication standards. Three main technologies would prevail at this time: TDMA, CDMA, and GSM. The 2nd generation of mobile telephony lasted until the turn of the millennium (perhaps a little before or after) and brought several innovations, including some that we will mention shortly.
Why talk? Send an SMS
An indispensable feature for many people is the text messaging service (SMS). Few know, but the first text message was sent in 1993, through a carrier in Finland. In Brazil, it took a long time for 
“all” this technology to arrive, after all, Brazilian carriers were still thinking about installing landlines for customers.
Text messages were not a big deal at the time because they were limited to a few characters and did not allow the use of accents or special characters. Moreover, it was difficult to use the SMS service because it was necessary that, in addition to your cell phone, the recipient’s phone was compatible with the technology. Cell phones capable of sending text messages generally came equipped with an alphanumeric keyboard, after all, the device should understand letters as well as numbers.
New services to attract customers
Cell phones had somewhat annoying ringtones, however, with the advancement of technology in carriers and devices, monophonic and polyphonic personalized ringtones began to appear, a factor that made people in Brazil spend “rivers” of 
money just to have their favorite team’s anthem as a ringtone.
Time to introduce a bit of color
Without a doubt, everything was great for consumers, but something was still missing for the cell phone to be complete: colors. Devices with monochrome displays simply did not convey everything our eyes could perceive. Soon manufacturers introduced displays with grayscale, a feature that allowed distinguishing images. Despite this, no one was satisfied because everything seemed very unreal.
When the first cell phone with four thousand colors appeared, people thought the world was ending because it was an incredible technology for such a small device. It didn’t take long for devices to gain displays with an incredible 64 thousand colors and soon displays with up to 256 thousand colors appeared — images already looked real and there was no way to perceive the lack of colors. Obviously, evolution did not stop, and today devices have 16 million colors, a feature that is fundamental in high-resolution devices.
Multimedia messages and the internet, a great advancement…
With the possibility of viewing colored images, it didn’t take long for cell phones to gain the feature of multimedia messages, famous MMS. Multimedia messages, at first, would be useful for sending images to other contacts, however, with the evolution of the service, MMS became a service that supports even sending videos, it is almost like sending an email.
What everyone wanted was finally available on cell phones: the internet. Obviously, the internet accessed through a cell phone was nothing like that used on computers, however, this would evolve very soon. It was necessary for portals to create their own pages for mobile (the so-called WAP pages), with reduced content and few details.
The 3rd generation approaches
At the same time that mobile phone operators were implementing new services, manufacturers were not stopping innovating in device functions. You just read all the features that 2G cell phones had, but there are still details about what the intermediate generation brought. Although not officially announced, the 2.5G generation was marked by a significant increase in internet access speed, new features of devices, and of course, by presenting a new concept of cell phone to users.
Camera for images and video
The implementation of a camera in a cell phone was very revolutionary, but even today it is difficult to find a device that brings a good quality camera, or at least, that can achieve acceptable results in any situation. In fact, it is quite obvious that cell phones do not come with professional cameras, after all, there is no logic in a device whose main function is communication, having a camera better than the common ones.
Manufacturers have been introducing cutting-edge technology in the latest devices, so much so that some models, like the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD, are already capable of recording video in high 
definition and with an acceptable frame rate (30 fps). As if that weren’t enough, this little device has technology to detect faces (and smiles), all with the incredible 8 MP (Megapixels) camera that still features a flash.
MP3 eliminates the need for other gadgets
Nowadays, it is common for cell phones to support MP3 file playback, however, there was a time when this was a great luxury. There was a time when these files didn’t even exist, and manufacturers were already considering the idea of including support for music playback. It took a while to arrive, but the MP3 function became one of the biggest attractions in cell phones because consumers simply like to have multiple functions in one device.
Obviously, some companies did not limit themselves to MP3 file playback and therefore added support for other types of audio files, such as ACC and WMA. Of course, it is also impossible not to remember manufacturers who indulged in adding an equalizer, support for playlists, visualizations, and the incredible ability to transmit audio to two or more headphones.
They became smart
Currently, there is not much talk about cell phones because the topic of the moment is smartphones. The term smartphone was adopted due to the use of an operating system in cell phones. Of course, this capability is restricted to a small number of devices, however, the trend is that manufacturers increasingly invest in the creation of this type of cell phone.
In addition to the operating system, most smartphones come with wireless network (wi-fi), a reasonably good quality camera (usually the minimum is 2 MP), Bluetooth (some devices are not compatible with AD2P technology), internal memory with plenty of space, or space for external cards, enhanced functions (such as playback of files requiring codecs, or compatibility with Microsoft Office documents), support for 3G networks, and much more.
The operating systems of the devices vary greatly because each manufacturer puts a different system. The main ones are: Symbian and Windows Mobile (the iPhone uses MAC OS X). Source: www.tecmundo.com.br, by Fabio Jordão
The 10 years of the iPhone
“Steve had emphatically said that everything was super secret. And that he would summarily fire anyone who revealed secrets. I was sweating bullets.” This is how Tony Fadell describes his despair while searching for an explanation to give to Steve Jobs, the then all-powerful owner of Apple.
Fadell had simply lost the prototype of what would become one of the most successful technological products of all time – the iPhone, whose launch completed 10 years.
He had just gotten off a plane and, when he checked his pockets… nothing.
“In my head, I imagined all the possible scenarios for what could happen. None of them ended well,” he recounts today.
After two hours, however, there was an immense feeling of relief, thanks to the efforts of a “search team” that did not know what they were looking for.
“(The prototype) had fallen out of my pocket and lodged between the seats.”
In just a few months, the world would know about the new device, but not about the scare that inventor and designer Fadell, one of the people responsible for the development of the iPhone and another iconic Apple product – the audio file player iPod – went through.
Dubbed by technology experts as one of the “godfathers of the iPod,” Fadell left Apple in 2010 and founded Nest, a smart home technology company that is now part of Alphabet’s portfolio, the company that owns Google.
While its closest competitor, Microsoft, was trying to fit a PC into a phone, Apple envisioned a
sophistication of the iPod.
Another division of Apple had begun developing a computer using a touchscreen. It was a secret project, but Jobs presented it to Fadell.
“It was the size of a ping-pong table. Steve showed me and said he wanted to see that screen in an iPod.”
Apple had some of the best “brains” in the personal technology world, but up to that point, it had not yet made phones.
Right in the first stage, during a visit to a manufacturer in Malmo, Sweden, the Apple team had their belongings stolen from a car while dining at a restaurant in the city. But few secrets were lost, and the team returned to the US full of ideas.
Jobs had decided to use a touchscreen and was irritated by contrary ideas, creating a blunt policy regarding people who advocated a traditional keyboard on the phone:
“Until you agree with me, none of you will return to this room. If you don’t want to be on the team, leave the team,” he reportedly told the opponents, according to Fadell. And the discord soon ended.
From the beginning of the project, Jobs had made it clear that a finger would be necessary to operate the iPhone, but Fadell recounts that he secretly asked the team working on the screen to ensure that it would also be compatible with optical pens.
On January 9, 2007, hordes of journalists and fans packed the Moscone Center in San Francisco to attend a talk by Jobs.
Fadell recounts that the billionaire had not brought a ready device, but still, he became known as the “Jesus phone.”
Part of the press mocked the pompous way in which the iPhone was launched, something also seen in the competition – Steve Ballmer, then CEO of Microsoft, openly mocked the device, calling it an “email machine” that was not very good and would not appeal to business users. “We laughed at him and we laughed at Blackberry,” Fadell recounts.
“I learned from Steve Jobs that whenever we create a new product, you cause concern when competitors and the press mock.”
Since that day, more than a billion iPhones have been sold.
Sources: Technology and Science by BBC BRASIL