Smartphones & Tablets

Mobile phones

Early mobile phones were brick-sized portable devices that could make and receive (very expensive) phone calls. As technology progressed, they shrank in size, and by the late 1990s, they could fit in a pocket and had gained the ability to send and receive short messages, or SMS.

By the mid-2000s, network and hardware technologies had evolved where you could buy a phone from a company like Nokia or Erikson with a colour screen, a very basic web browser, some built-in games and apps and a low-quality camera.

Smartphones

A smartphone combines mobile telephone services and advanced computing functionality into a portable device.

Apple launched the first iPhone in June 2007, and while some people in the tech industry were initially sceptical, consumers soon fell in love with the devices and their large (for the time) glass touchscreens and Apple-developed operating system.

Google launched their first Android phone in 2008, and as more people started to experience the benefits of a “computer in your pocket”, the move to smartphones was soon well underway.

If you think about it, the _phone _part of the smartphone name now seems a bit outdated – if you’re anything like me, then the “Phone” app is one of your least used features on what is really a portable social media, messaging and entertainment device.

The modern smartphone market is dominated by Android and Apple devices. While Google develops the Android operating system, they allow outside manufacturers like Samsung and Xiaomi to use the system, and as a result, the majority of smartphones sold globally each year are Android devices.

Tablets

Tablets are a category of portable mobile devices with touch screens larger than smartphones, but smaller than what you would generally find on a laptop computer. Many companies make tablets, but in terms of sales, the category is dominated by Apple’s iPad range.