Many people wouldn’t know this but, according to BBC the IBM Simmon is the world’s first ever smartphone and it’s twenty years birthday was recently celebrated a few days back.
The IBM Simmon which was released August 16 1994. Though, it wasn’t called a smartphone back then (the term hadn’t been invented yet), it had the ability to send emails, take notes, had a calender and also a couple of software applications which wasn’t common back then and could as well connect to a fax machine.
The phone which was just a dual screen with a stylus pen, and was mostly seen with those in the business community due to it’s advanced features back then. It had a hefty price tag of $899 and weighed a whooping 500g (About the same weight of a Samsung tablet). It was only operated within 15 states network in the United States and sold 50,000 units, probably due to it’s poor battery life as it was known to last just about an hour.
The Simmon is said to go on display this October in the UK as part of the Information Age Exhibition. It’s safe to say this phone inspired and encouraged mobile phone manufactures to go into the production of what we now call smartphones.
Source: BBC