What is a smartphone definition?
・The phone has a foldable design with two folds ・The phone is mainly for phone and email, and the apps are a little bit
・The smartphone is a touch panel type
・The smartphone can be filled with apps
In fact, it is said that there is no clear definition of phones and smartphones. It seems that there is no clear thing like “If there is OO, it is definitely a phone call” or “If OO is there, it is absolutely a smartphone”.
However, as mentioned above, the characteristics of the phone are like the phone and the phone is like the phone, and the manufacturers are making things that do not largely deviate from the design and specifications.
World’s first smartphone “IBM Simon”
The IBM Simon Personal Communicator (common name: IBM Simon) released by IBM in 1994 was the world’s first mobile phone with a touch panel built into it.
Of course, the word “smartphone” did not exist at that time in the world, but it is the first in the world. It is said to be a “smartphone”.
But, as most of the readers of this article think “I don’t know that,” this cell phone was never widespread. It is said that the number of units sold was around 50,000. It was not even released in Japan.
There are various reasons, but it is said that the biggest reason is that the world has not yet matured. At that time, even mobile phones such as mobile phones were not yet widespread (pagers were all the rage in Japan), and computers and the Internet were still in their infancy and were not common.
This model was too early in the era.