40 years of mobile telephones

On September 21, 1983, the US company Motorola received approval for the world's first mobile phone, the DynaTAC 8000X, shown here in the right hand of the company's former chief designer, Rudy Krolopp. Weighing 800 grams (1.75 lbs) and 33 centimeters (13 inches) long, it cost around $4,000 at the time. Successor models soon became more comfortable.

Despite its weight, the Motorola model was still a revolution. Before the handheld mobile phone reached the market, previous devices allowing people to make a call from anywhere had to be transported in massive suitcases. Using radio waves, connections had to be made by telephone operators and they often broke off. Admittedly, this remains a problem to this day in Germany.

It took quite a while for the cell phone to become a mass product. The devices were way more expensive than today's models. Usage fees were also very high; phone calls were billed per minute. And not everyone felt they should be reachable everywhere at any time; it was rather seen as a business tool. Shown here is the Nokia Communicator 9000, the first smartphone to reach the market in 1996.

Before different text messaging apps were invented, the SMS, short for Short Message Service, was the standard. Each SMS was also billed individually, and messages were limited to 160 characters, which required them to be brief. Recipients were more protected from unnecessary information than they are today.

In the 2000s, manufacturers placed emphasis on making new models increasingly portable. The Motorola company relied on flip cell phones that encouraged their owners to make "cool" moves when folding and unfolding them before and after use. Some phones were already boasting larger displays, but the smartphone revolution was still to come.

In 2007, Apple brought the first iPhone onto the market, challenging its competitors with a phone that combined various services, such as access to a music library that made an additional MP3 player superfluous. The biggest innovation, however, was the iPhone's intuitive touchscreen, which replaced the keyboard.

Canadian company BlackBerry had the first widespread smartphone on the market in the early 2000s. Their pocket-sized mobile office was particularly popular among business people and politicians. But the company stuck to its physical keyboard for too long after the iPhone came out, leading to its death. The story of the product's sudden downfall is portrayed in the 2023 film, "BlackBerry."

Forty years after its market launch, the mobile phone has become indispensable. According to Germany's Statista, around 4.6 billion people own at least one cell phone. In China and the US, there are more cell phones in use than inhabitants. The devices have made landline connections unnecessary, and are used for navigation, as a camera, as a source of information and for entertainment.

The development of a compact cell phone was once quite a technological sensation. But now, many smartphones are way too big to be carried in the pocket of your jeans. People who want to watch videos on their phone prefer a larger screen, and the original main function of the device — making phone calls — now plays a minor role.

Instead of calling each other, many people mostly use their phone for social media services. Instagram and TikTok are the most frequently used apps among the younger generation. But people of all ages also enjoy posing for a selfie, like Samuel L. Jackson and Glenn Close, shown here at the Oscars in 2019.

Manufacturers like Samsung and Motorola are now offering smartphone models that can be folded despite having touchscreens. When unfolded, no edge or joint is visible between the two halves of the screen. Just like the return of the large-sized phone, this innovation is also reminiscent of designs from the past.