The first mobile phone call was made 50 years ago in New York
Smartphones now function as portable mini-computers, but the device that made the first mobile phone call 50 years ago in New York was very different.
Motorola Engineer, Marty Cooper, made the call to a counterpart at Bell Laboratories in April 1973 on a large phone that weighed almost 1kg and was the dictionary definition of a “dumb” device with just basic calling functionality.
While the phone was very limited, it was cutting-edge at the time and would cost the equivalent of $11,700 today, according to the Mobile Phone Museum’s Ben Wood.
He added, “There was no messaging, no camera. Thirty minutes of talk-time, 10 hours to charge the battery, about 12 hours of stand-by time and a 6in (15cm) antenna on the top.”
Mr Cooper, who made the call on the corner of Sixth Avenue, says the industry was more focused on developing car-based phones rather than portable devices at the time.
The industry started going in a different direction after a commercial version of the prototype mobile phone was released in 1984.
While mobile phones have evolved significantly in the last two decades following the launch of the iPhone, Cooper is unimpressed with their design for voice-based communications.
The 94-year-old says the flat, glass design is uncomfortable to hold and doesn’t align with the curve of the human head.
He also bemoans the fact that most advanced functionality on smartphones is locked behind app downloads.
However, he still sees a bright future for mobile devices and believes we are only at the “very beginning” of the smartphone “revolution”.