Smartphones are high-end mobile phones with capabilities that go far beyond traditional phone functions. Today’s smartphones unite the features of PDAs, portable media players and point-and-shoot cameras in one device. Most smartphones are equipped with high-definition touchscreens and enable their users to access the Internet on the go. The first devices labelled as smartphones were introduced in the late 1990s and offered features such as e-mail communication, text-based web-browsing and QUERTY keyboards.
The starting point of today’s touchscreen smartphones was marked by the introduction of Apple’s iPhone in 2007. The iPhone was the first phone to offer a multi-touch interface which soon became the industry standard. The iPhone ran on its own operating system called iOS that came with a pre-installed set of applications. Soon after its launch, independent developers began introducing applications that added functions to unlocked or “jailbroken” iPhones. Apple reacted by officially opening the system to third-party developers in 2008. The
App Store was introduced and quickly became an essential part of the iPhone ecosystem.
In fiscal year 2011, Apple sold 72 million iPhones, generating more than 40 billion U.S. dollars in revenue.
In 2008, HTC introduced the HTC Dream, which was the first smartphone to run Android, an open operating system developed by a consortium led by Google. Android offers similar features as iOS does and is supported by smartphone manufacturers such as HTC, Samsung and Sony. The system quickly grew a substantial customer base and is now the leading
operating system for smartphones with a market share above 40 percent. Even though the race for the leading postion in the mobile operating systems market is currently a two-horse race between Apple's iOS and Google's Android, Microsoft is hoping to increase its market share with the current and future versions of Windows Phone. To do so, Microsoft formed a strategic partnership with struggling phone manufacturer Nokia, who is hoping to revive its past success in the phone market.
The global smartphone market grew significantly between 2007 and 2010.
Worldwide smartphone sales increased from 122 million units in 2007 to 297 million units in 2010. Meanwhile the balance of power in the
smartphone market shifted: Nokia, who had dominated in terms of global unit sales for years, recently lost its lead to be overtaken by the new market leaders Apple and Samsung in the second quarter of 2011. It will be interesting to see whether the current leaders can maintain their position in the future as the global smartphone market continues to grow and global players like
Microsoft, Nokia and Sony are unwilling to back down.
Photo: DanielZanetti, wikimedia/cc