defines the term \u2018Smartphone\u2019<\/a>: \u201cThe term Smartphone has been coined to describe devices which, while being primarily a mobile phone, incorporate elements of functions found in paper-based personal organizer systems or in modern electronic personal digital assistants (PDA)\u201d.<\/p>\nThe Ericsson R380s took the face of the mobile phone to a new level \u2013 with a standard telephone keypad on the outside, which could be flipped out to expose an inner touchscreen. \u00a0This was reminiscent of the IBM Simon, but fared better on the market. \u00a0The touch screen enabled a number of features including text messaging, email, and limited web browsing \u2013 much like the features we come to take for granted today on our modern Smartphone<\/p>\n
What most people would regard as the first step towards the modern Smartphone is the release of the 2003 RIM Blackberry 7200 series.\u00a0 This device had the beginnings of the signature look and feel of future Blackberry devices.\u00a0 Aside from its role as telephone, the main purpose of the new Blackberry was to enable mobile emailing.<\/p>\n
In their 2004 Annual Report, Blackberry confirmed an incredible user growth from approx. 534,000 users in 2003 to over a million in 2004.\u00a0 Blackberry positioned itself as a leader in wireless communication, especially in a world where business people are constantly on the go.\u00a0 With a reach of 50 networks in 30 countries, RIM\u2019s technology allowed its users to have wireless freedom around the world.<\/p>\n
Since then, RIM has soared to what many believe to be its peak and plunged into near-bankruptcy.\u00a0 Still, to this day we see the Blackberry brand being revitalized to trying to keep itself afloat \u2013 in a world where the QWERTY keyboard has gone from external hardware to on-screen, touch only, and most people don\u2019t hear anything other than Apple and Android.<\/p>\n
Have we got you hooked? Come back and check out our next post where we delve into the iPhone and Android devices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We left off last time with RIM\u2019s first Blackberry device, the Blackberry 850, and the start of a culture of QWERTY keyboard equipped devices.\u00a0 So what came next? Shortly after the release of the first Blackberry device the term \u2018Smartphone\u2019 started to linger in the mobile airwaves, starting with Ericsson\u2019s first Smartphone, the R380s in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"post_series":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3412"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3466,"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3412\/revisions\/3466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3412"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tf-usa.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=3412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}