You probably think the smartphone started with Steve Jobs pulling a shiny piece of glass out of his pocket in 2007. It’s a great story. It's iconic. But honestly? It's just not true. If you’re asking when is smartphone invented, you have to look back much further than the iPhone. We're talking about a time when Bill Clinton was just starting his first term and "The Sign" by Ace of Base was topping the charts.
The real answer is 1992.
That was the year IBM showed off something called the Simon Personal Communicator at COMDEX in Las Vegas. It was a brick. It weighed more than a pound. It was ugly, expensive, and didn’t have an app store, but it was the first time anyone successfully shoved a computer into a telephone.
The 1992 IBM Simon: The true origin story
IBM didn't call it a smartphone back then. That word didn't even exist yet. They called it a "personal communicator," which sounds like something out of a low-budget sci-fi flick. But look at what it did. It had a touchscreen. It had a stylus. You could send faxes—which was a huge deal in the nineties—and it had a calendar, a notepad, and even a world clock.
It was way ahead of its time.
BellSouth Cellular eventually released it to the public in 1994 for about $899 with a contract. Adjust that for inflation today and you're looking at nearly $1,800. People didn't buy it. Only about 50,000 units moved before it was pulled from the shelves. It was too heavy, the battery lasted about an hour if you were lucky, and the cellular networks of the mid-90s were basically glorified tin cans with strings. But the DNA was there. IBM proved that a phone could be more than a phone.
Why the 90s failed to go viral
The technology just wasn't ready for the vision. In 1996, Nokia tried their hand with the 9000 Communicator. It looked like a regular (albeit chunky) phone, but it flipped open to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard and a secondary screen. It felt like holding a tiny laptop. Business executives loved it, but the average person? No way. It was too niche.
Then came the Ericsson R380 in 2000. This is a fun trivia fact: the R380 was actually the first device to be officially marketed using the term "smartphone." It ran on Symbian OS, which would go on to dominate the world for a decade before Google and Apple decided to ruin everyone's party.
The Blackberry era and the shift to "Smart"
Before the iPhone changed the world, Research In Motion (RIM) owned the streets. If you worked on Wall Street or in D.C. in the early 2000s, you had a BlackBerry. You had to. The BlackBerry 5810, released in 2002, was their first "phone," though you actually had to plug in a headset to make a call.
Imagine that today. Holding a device that can't even make a phone call without an external wire.
BlackBerry won because of email. They figured out "push" technology, meaning your messages arrived instantly instead of you having to hit a refresh button. It was addictive. People called them "CrackBerries" for a reason. By the mid-2000s, the smartphone wasn't just a tool; it was a status symbol. Palm was also in the mix with the Treo, trying to combine their PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) success with cellular tech. It was a messy, experimental time.
The 2007 paradigm shift
So, if the smartphone was invented in 1992, why does everyone think it happened in 2007?
Because Apple didn't just invent a phone; they invented the modern interface. Before the iPhone, touchscreens were terrible. They were resistive, meaning you had to physically mash the screen with a stylus or a fingernail to get a response. Apple introduced capacitive touch. It used the electricity in your skin. It felt like magic.
Steve Jobs stood on that stage and described it as three devices: a wide-screen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device. He wasn't lying. But he was also standing on the shoulders of IBM, Nokia, and BlackBerry.
When is smartphone invented? The nuanced timeline
If you want to be a pedant at a dinner party, here is the breakdown of how "invention" actually works in technology. It's rarely a single "Eureka!" moment.
- 1992: IBM Simon is proto-invented. The hardware exists.
- 2000: Ericsson brands the term "smartphone" for the first time.
- 2002: BlackBerry makes it a "must-have" for business.
- 2007: Apple makes it a "must-have" for humans.
- 2008: Android (HTC Dream/G1) launches, making the tech affordable for everyone else.
Google actually started developing Android before the iPhone was announced. They thought the future would look more like a BlackBerry—lots of buttons and a small screen. When they saw the iPhone, they reportedly scrapped their designs and started over. That’s how much of a shock 2007 was to the system.
The tech that made it possible
We can't talk about when the smartphone was invented without talking about the battery. Lithium-ion technology is the unsung hero here. You could have a computer in your pocket in 1980, but you'd need a car battery in a backpack to power it.
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Miniaturization of processors was the other piece of the puzzle. ARM architecture—which still powers almost every phone today—allowed for chips that didn't get so hot they'd melt through your pocket.
It’s also about the networks. 3G was the "secret sauce" that made the 2007-2010 explosion possible. Without 3G, the original iPhone was actually kind of a dog. It ran on the EDGE network (2G), which was painfully slow. You could barely load a basic webpage, let alone stream a video. Once the hardware met the high-speed network, the smartphone stopped being a "phone" and became the primary way we experience reality.
Misconceptions about the "Invention"
A lot of people think Windows Mobile was a latecomer. Actually, Microsoft was trying to put "Pocket PC" software on phones long before Apple. The problem was they tried to put a desktop experience on a tiny screen. It had a "Start" button. It had tiny scroll bars. It was a nightmare to use.
Expert opinion: Innovation isn't just about being first. It's about being right. IBM was first. Nokia was early. But they were designing for the world they already knew. Apple and later Google (with Android) designed for a world that didn't exist yet—one where we spend five hours a day staring at a glowing rectangle.
Actionable insights for the curious
If you’re researching the history of mobile tech or looking to understand where we're going next, keep these points in mind:
- Check the terminology. When searching for early smartphones, use the term "PDA" (Personal Digital Assistant). That’s where the "smart" part of the phone actually grew up.
- Look at the OS. The "invention" of the smartphone is really the invention of the mobile operating system. Research Symbian, PalmOS, and Windows Mobile to see the failed experiments that led to iOS and Android.
- Visit a museum. If you're ever in London, the Science Museum has an original IBM Simon. Seeing it in person makes you realize how far we've come. It's huge.
- Don't ignore the hardware limits. Every time you think "why didn't they do this sooner?", look at the history of cellular data speeds. The phone can only be as smart as the tower it's talking to.
The smartphone wasn't invented on a single day. It was a slow-motion car crash of computing, telephony, and battery science that finally clicked into place in the early 90s and reached its final form in the late 2000s. We’re still living in the aftermath of that collision.