The World’s First Smartphone Turns 20 – Please Enjoy This Beast

18 Aug 2014 by Jasmine Stone in Tech/Sci

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With just about every person these days walking around with a smartphone, it’s good to look back on where it all started, and this past week marked the 20th birthday of the “world’s first smartphone”.

The IBM Simon first went on sale on 16 August 1994, and featured computing technology that was pretty darn impressive, and to pay tribute to the device, London’s Science Museum is putting it on display in its new Information Age gallery.

“The Simon wasn’t called a smartphone back then,” said curator Charlotte Connelly.

“But it had a lot of the features we see today. It had a calendar, it could take notes and send emails and messages and combined all of this with a cell phone.”

The phone weighed 500g, featured a stylus and a green LCD screen, but was only available in the US and it’s hefty price-tag meant that it was only popular with the business big-shots.

Read the full story on BBC.

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