The mobile phone industry is one which has been characterized by a breathtaking speed of change and development, and anyone who has owned a number of handsets will be aware of the dramatic change evident between a phone of just a few years ago and the latest available models. In order to identify a set of core design issues which hold across generations of handset design, we need to set our sights higher than an analysis of the design of the latest high-end smartphone. We believe a very good place to start is with a review of the relatively short, yet thrilling, history of mobile handsets, providing an opportunity to understand the technological and market issues which have driven this phenomenal development.

Development of the first mobile handset

A famous telephone call

On April 3, 1973, Marty, a researcher at the US company Motorola, made a phone call from a Manhattan sidewalk to his colleague Joel Engel at the US telephone carrier AT&T.

The purpose of Marty’s call that particular Spring day was to inform Joel, that he, Marty, was calling him from the world’s first ever portable cellular telephone, beating AT&T in the technology race to develop a viable commercial portable cellular telephone. This first portable cellular phone was unlike anything we know today – consisting of about a kilogram of plastic and electronics, shaped something like a shoe, using analog radio technology, without any form of screen or menu buttons, and yet able to make and receive telephone calls “without wires” and when on the move. Marty, or, to give him his full name, Martin Cooper, is now revered by many as the father of the mobile phone.