Cellular Phone as a Multi-Function Appliance

Cellular Phone as A Multi-Function Appliance

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Cellular Phone as A Multi-Function Appliance

Introduction

Cellular phones were invented in the 1940s from the hand held radio transceivers that were used in the Second World War. These devices were meant for basic communication purposes (Ilyas and Ahson, 2006). The first cellular inventions did not even have the ability to send messages. Thus, only voice calls would be made using these devices. However, advancement in technology coupled with the ever increasing human wants has led to the revolution of the cellular phone industry. This has led to the advancement of the cellular phones from the basic (0G) phones to the fancied (4G) phones. Consequently, since their inception in the mid 90s, cellular phones have evolved into multifunctional devices capable of performing numerous tasks.

Smart Phones

Evolution of cellular devices into multi-function appliances can be summarized by the inception of the smart phones. Therefore, these cellular devices are phones capable of performing multiple functions such as those offered by personal digital assistants (PDAs) and computers (Ilyas and Ahson, 2006). Consequently, these smart phones combine numerous features such as media players, compact digital cameras, video cameras and GPS systems. In addition, these devices can access web pages at extremely high internet speeds and display the pages accessed with clear resolutions. Consequently, this evolution of cellular devices into multifunctional devices can be attributed to the inception of various features as outlined in subsequent paragraphs.

Operating System

Operating system (OS) refers to the technical framework upon which a smart phone is run. Consequently, the incorporation of PDA features into a smart phone can be attributed to the phone’s OS. The Symbian OS was the first OS to be incorporated into cellular phones by the Ericsson smart phone in 2000. Consequently, its inception resulted in the invention of other numerous cellular operating systems such as Windows, Palm, and BlackBerry among others. However, iOS and Android operating systems have contributed immensely to the evolution of cellular phones into multifunctional devices (Every, 2009). Therefore, this has enabled cellular phones to perform numerous PDA-like and computer functions such as sending and receiving emails and creation and editing of documents.