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Camera Phone
The first camera phone was built by Sharp in Japan, followed by Samsung building their own camera phone in South Korea. Even though camera phones were an immediate success in Asia, the United States did not get camera phones until 2002. -
3G
The development of 3G technology started in the 1980s by the International Telecommunication Union but was not released for commercial use until 2001. 3G was a big improvement over 2G technology, as it was significantly faster, allowing for more widespread use in cellular devices. -
microSD
As camera phones grew in popularity, so did the need for picture storage. SanDisk developed the microSD card to be small enough to fit into cellphones, allowing people to take more pictures with their phones, and more easily get those pictures off the phone and into a computer. -
iPhone
While not the first smartphone, the Apple iPhone was the first smartphone to successfully market to all cellphone users (not just busy professionals). The iPhone realized the vision of everyone being able to carry a computer in their pocket. -
iPad
As with the iPhone, the Apple iPad was not the first of it's kind. It was, however, the first mass-market tablet computer. Unlike other tablets at the time, the iPad was not designed to replace computers by running a computer operating system. Rather, it had it's own operating system that bridged the gap between smartphones and computers.
