Top 10 mobile inventions in the past 30 years

Breakthrough innovations in handset history

Over the past 20 years the mobile industry has grown and matured at a rate rivalled only by the world wide web. This week we take a look back at the key innovations that helped take mobile phones from large hefty bricks, to sleek and powerful smartphones.

Honourable mention: Nokia 7110Iain Thomson: Now, I could lie and say that the 7110 is on the list because it was the first mobile phone with a WAP browser. While that's admirable in a way, the reason it's on the list is that for a lot of people it made mobile phones cool.

Mobiles weren't particularly stylish at the time. True, there had been some progress, but they were still being designed by engineers, albeit increasingly creative ones in some ways.

Nokia once proudly showed me a handset which, when set to vibrate and placed vertically on the table, would walk across the surface. It had taken them a week of hard work to get it to do that, the PR told me proudly. While the geek in me was deeply impressed, you're not pulling with that.

As 2000 approached there were numerous signs of insanity, ranging from religious cults, Y2K survivalists and, my personal favourite, Carlos Roa, the Argentinian goalkeeper who refused a contract because the world was ending. But one of the most pervasive and annoying were people who really, really liked The Matrix.

In the film Keanu Reaves uses a Nokia 8110 that had been modified with a spring-loaded slider. In cinemas and basements across the land, millions of people thought 'I want some of that.'

Never one to miss a trick, Nokia brought out the 7110 with just that feature, and they were everywhere for about six months. Millions of Neo wannabies were ostentatiously making calls while wondering around in long dark jackets. Then reality kicked in; most of them realised that it was just a film, the 7110's spring-loader broke after a few months hard posing, and there were better phones out there.

Shaun Nichols: One of the biggest keys to getting a technology to work in the larger market is to take the engineering features and balance them out with a sleek design and interface. It's a lesson Apple adheres to religiously, and it's been the reason for many 'breakout' technologies over the years.

Geeks love cool features and practical technologies, but most consumers want their cool features and practical technologies in a sleek and fashionable casing. Nokia found this out with the 7110 handset.

While the handset sported a number of very cool and innovative hardware and software features, the 'killer app' for many consumers was something as simple as a spring-loaded cover. It was the equivalent of a high-powered car not selling until the company put a stripe down the side.

Honourable mention: Airplane modeShaun Nichols: Fans of The West Wing will remember a great scene in the show's first episode in which White House staffer Toby is asked by a flight attendant to turn off his cell phone, to which he responds: " You mean to tell me I can take this plane down with something I bought at Radio Shack?"

While they may not have been able to crash a 747, the bothersome interference cell phones caused pilots did spur the airline industry to make a rule that handsets had to be turned off during flights. This wasn't a huge issue when all mobile phones did was send and receive calls, but once companies started putting games and music in there, travellers wanted a way to keep their handsets on while in flight.

It wasn't long before the concept of 'airplane mode' was adopted. The feature allows the mobile phone, 3G and Wi-Fi components to be disabled while the rest of the device remains on, meeting airline requirements while preserving the entertainment features on the handset. It's also a good way to preserve battery life and avoid data roaming charges while travelling abroad.

Iain Thomson: The irrationality of airplane rules knows no bounds, and mobile phones have been swept up in the frenzy to be safer while flying.

I flew out of New York a month after 11 September and one man became quite hysterical at another passenger who was using her mobile phone while we were taxiing onto the runway. You still have to switch the devices off during the initial and final stages of a flight, but the end result of all this panic is that not one plane crash has been linked to mobile phone use.

Talk to pilots about the situation and they can tell whether someone's left their mobile on in a plane. As one explained to me, the signal causes a faint ticking sound on some frequencies so they can always tell when one is on, and there's always at least one. "It's usually in my pocket," he said.

Still, there are panicky people out there so if airplane mode makes them feel better then I'm happy to use it for a bit of piece and quiet.

Top 10 mobile inventions in the past 30 years

Breakthrough innovations in handset history

10. Micro USBIain Thomson: We put micro USB on the list not for what it does now, so much as what it will do in the future. With the EU adoption of the standard for mobile phones, and growing moves elsewhere, micro USB could play an important role in cutting electronic waste.

Go into the home of anyone who has been using a mobile for five years or more and I bet you could find at least three chargers, all with different ports. Every manufacturer had their own standard that was usually decided on the fly depending on the design needs of the phone and whatever components were cheapest at the time. As a result compatibility was pretty much zero and you got a new charger every time you got a new phone.

There are now millions, and soon to be billions, of these chargers sitting in tangled heaps at the bottom of boxes or buried in landfill where they will take thousands of years to decompose completely. If micro USB lives up to its promise a large proportion of the next generation's mobile phone chargers will be saved from making such a mess of things.

Shaun Nichols: One of the better ideas to be floated by the mobile phone industry in recent years was a universal charger. Since getting hardware vendors to agree on a common hardware standard is about as easy as herding cats, this was no small feat.

Getting everyone onboard with micro USB could also prove to be lucrative for peripherals and hardware vendors. Imagine the market you could find for micro USB recharging stations at airports or malls.

Then, as Iain noted, there's the waste issue as well. Unlike desktop computers or printers, phone chargers are small enough to fit into an average trash can and are more likely to slip through and end up in a landfill. New recycling and public education efforts are helping to curb the flow, but settling on a single standard for chargers would also go a very long way.

9. AndroidShaun Nichols: Android brings to the market an open, widely supported and powerful smartphone platform that was definitely needed by vendors.

BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile were all doing well enough for the enterprise smartphone space, but in recent years a market has emerged for flashy, media-friendly consumer smartphones as well. Android could well prove to be just what everyone in the industry wanted.

Yes, and by everyone I also mean Apple. Given the company's need to tightly control its hardware and software, Apple will need a dominant rival in order to avoid anti-competition issues. Just as Apple needs Windows to sustain its approach to personal computers, the iPhone needs the likes of Android and other platforms to keep its market share in check.

Iain Thomson: I'm not sure about that last point, Shaun. I think Steve Jobs wants competition as much as he wants to wake up next to Bill Gates wearing a wedding ring.

I suspect in future lists Android will poll a lot higher, but it's early days yet, and there's trouble on the horizon for the operating system in the short term. Devices like the Droid are selling well, but Android is updating faster than the hardware can keep up and a lot of early adopters are going to get rather annoyed.

That said Android in the long term looks good. It's already on netbooks as well as mobiles and looks flexible enough to handle a wide variety of future devices.

Top 10 mobile inventions in the past 30 years

Breakthrough innovations in handset history

8. iPhoneIain Thomson: From an engineering standpoint the first iPhone was nothing special. It was medium spec, lacked 3G and had a lousy battery life. But what it did have was a game-changing interface.

The concept of a phone that was just a glass face wasn't that new, but it was executed so well by Apple, and the interface was so easy to use, that mobile manufacturers suddenly woke up to the possibilities of touch screens and gesture control.

In design departments across the land the order came to build similar handsets and I doubt that most high-end smartphone manufacturers will bother with more than a few buttons in future handsets.

The iPhone also kick-started the consumer mobile internet market by making online activity very easy. The mobile internet had been around for ages but few people were using it. Now you had a handset specifically designed for the job, and so many people got online that AT&T's US network is having real problems coping.

Apple is very good at making some things cool and easy, and the iPhone is a classic example.

Shaun Nichols: The iPhone was especially significant because it was the first smartphone to cause a big stir in the consumer market. While Nokia and RIM had already established the smartphone in the enterprise market, the larger consumer field wasn't willing to shell out the money.

This changed with the iPhone. As Iain noted, there wasn't anything particularly remarkable about the spec sheet, but in classic Apple fashion the user experience tied everything together so well that it didn't matter.

Let's also be realistic here; fashion appeal played a big part as well. The success of the iPod made Apple a pretty hip company, and when it put out a phone, there were more than a few people who wanted one as an accessory as much as anything else.

7. Portable videoShaun Nichols: Not long ago we placed mobile phones near the top of our technologies to beat tyranny list, and a good part of that was the addition of video recording features to mobile devices.

Video gave everyone the chance to capture poignant moments, and in the case of recent uprisings in places such as Iran, given the rest of the world access to moments that would otherwise never make it past international borders.

On a lighter note, it has also been a dream come true for YouTube and other viral video sites. No longer did you have to run and find a camcorder in order to capture the humiliating moments and painful experiences of loved ones and complete strangers alike.

Iain Thomson: Back in the 1980s the industry's definition of portable was a camcorder that would break your collarbone. Now, thanks to mobile phones, everyone's an auteur all of a sudden.

As Shaun has pointed out, mobile video is becoming a powerful social tool. Many occasional crimes go recorded on mobiles, some by the perpetrators themselves, and mobile video is becoming crucial police evidence. It's also being used to keep those same police honest.

We've still got a long way to go on this. Companies like Samsung are putting ever more high-tech cameras in phones, and the scope of mobile video will expand still further.

Top 10 mobile inventions in the past 30 years

Breakthrough innovations in handset history

6. 3GIain Thomson: The speed and technical excellence of the 3G standard highlights the strengths of the mobile industry, but its roll-out also showed one of the industry's key weaknesses: overselling.

When it was first introduced the technology was billed as a marvel, with speeds of over 100Mbit/s mentioned. The world was in the middle of the internet bubble and expectations were high. As a result governments around the world raised billions of pounds in auctioning off the spectrum to telecommunications companies, which were very keen to make that money back in billing charges.

So 3G was touted as the dawn of the mobile internet, but sadly it was not the revolution companies were expecting. Prices were high, speeds were slow and the networking rollout to support the standard was dire outside major cities, and still is in some areas. But above all, phones weren't yet being designed with the internet in mind, so the only people really using 3G online were laptop users with plug-in dongles.

With the coming of decent mobiles designed around internet use, 3G is now picking up and becoming something buyers demand rather than don't use. But it's taken a decade to get this far and I wonder whether 3G wouldn't be higher on the list if the rollout had not been botched quite so badly.

Shaun Nichols: Don't forget battery life. 3G connections have a healthy appetite for juice, and a constant stream of data over 3G can quickly drain a battery when you're travelling.

I don't think that the end of 3G is coming as quickly as some might think, however. The battery issue improves with each product refresh and, given the cost of rolling out new networks across large areas such as the North America or Central Europe, many carriers are going to want to maximise the lifespan of their investments.

That said, 3G definitely missed a good portion of its window of opportunity, and in reality its performance falls well short of what researchers and manufacturers promised.

5. SMSShaun Nichols: We touched on this in our previous lists, but it's interesting to note that SMS was originally considered a minor, somewhat forgotten component of mobile phone systems.

However, it wasn't long before users found out that there were substantial advantages to being able to silently communicate. When in crowded situations or extremely loud places, sometimes a text message is the only way to get hold of a friend. At other times, discretion is important and rather than disturb everyone around you with a conversation, you can quietly communicate with SMS.

There's also the less noble applications. A quick SMS to a friend can get you out of an uncomfortable situation, as can the tactic of pulling out your phone and stepping outside to answer an imaginary text message.

Iain Thomson: Text messaging is a wonderful thing. It's high on information (amazing what you can get into under 200 characters), low on bandwidth and has spawned an entire subculture. There was even news of a keyboard last week with a 'LOL' button.

SMS could be much higher on the list if some companies (yes I'm looking at you North America) didn't charge so much for it. SMS is so low bandwidth as to be negligible in cost so most of the revenue is pure profit. Companies should stop trying to screw consumers for what is a very basic service.

It's interesting that when the telcos tried to introduce multimedia mess aging services they fell flat with consumers in comparison. I think there's something about the simplicity of an SMS that appeals, plus the fact that you don't have to chat to the person at the other end of the line.

Top 10 mobile inventions in the past 30 years

Breakthrough innovations in handset history

4. SymbianIain Thomson: Symbian stems from a decision by Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson and Psion to develop a common operating system so that they could concentrate on making hardware and not needlessly competing on software.

Psion contributed the bulk of the operating system initially, and the Symbian platform was constantly developed and added to in a model that looked suspiciously open source to the rest of the industry. However, its usefulness was undeniable, and it's still the market leader in smartphone operating systems.

Nokia has since bought out the other partners and open sourced the entire code, so the platform really is accessible to all. Symbian will have a very long life, as it is doing very well in the Chinese and Indian markets where most growth will be in the future. It's amazing what a little co-operation will achieve.

Shaun Nichols: You can make the case that Symbian was the original Android: a platform designed to open up the software side and let vendors concentrate on building better hardware. It may not have the high profile of the iPhone or Android lines, but Symbian has very quietly become a big contributor.

As Iain noted, Symbian is looking to the same markets that Nokia exploited with the previous generation of smartphones. By focusing on the most rapidly emerging markets and being able to provide solid features without a huge price tag, Symbian could do pretty well for itself.

It will be interesting to see how the smartphone operating system market pans out. While open source operating systems have fallen flat in the desktop PC space, it seems that there is a much brighter market in the mobile space. Symbian may very well end up being a huge player yet.

3. ARM chipShaun Nichols: While its early origins go back 30 years, we still think the ARM processor is more than deserving of a spot on the list.

One of the better, and lesser-known, stories in tech history is that British firm Acorn Computer originally designed the ARM chip as a desktop processor. While it didn't take off in that space, the low power requirements of the chip made it perfect for energy-conscious mobile phones.

Today, the ARM processor is the overwhelming chip of choice to power mobile phones. Apple was so enamoured with the system that it purchased an ARM developer and used the platform to power its iPhone and iPad systems.

It was a bit of a head-slap moment when a reader pointed out the absence of ARM icons such as Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson on our list of the greatest Britons in IT. It's safe to say that the mobile computing world would be much different had they not done their pioneering work.

Iain Thomson: That was a mistake, and one we will rectify at a later date. ARM is one of those great technologies that you don't even realise is there, yet you'll find its chips in almost all modern mobile phones.

It combines high processing power with a relatively low power footprint. It's so popular because it's very good at what it does.

Looking ahead I hope ARM will still be on this list when we revisit it in later years. Intel is making a serious play for ARM's market with the Atom processor, and AMD is making increasing noises in the sphere too. I suspect ARM will be around for a good while yet, but in the long term things look more and more difficult.

Top 10 mobile inventions in the past 30 years

Breakthrough innovations in handset history

2. Motorola DynaTACIain Thomson: Mobile phones had been discussed in labs for years but at the end of the day someone had to go out and build one. The result was the Motorola DynaTAC.

By conventional standards the phone looks laughably bulky, but in 1983 it was the coolest executive toy on the block. Sure, people had mobiles in cars, although you had to be careful with the earlier models or they'd drain your battery.

But this was something you could put in a briefcase and use on the move, and the City boys loved them. Gordon Gecko had one and there's still a bronze statue of a trader using a bulky early mobile outside Cannon Street station in London.

At over two pounds and a foot long when the aerial was extended, the phone was stretching the definition of mobile today, and the one-hour battery life made it pretty much useless except for emergencies.

Despite the near $4,000 price tag and fees akin to burning money while making a call, they sold remarkably well and the mobile industry as we know it kicked off.

Shaun Nichols: In many ways the DynaTAC shows just how far the mobile industry has come in terms of technology and culture. When Gordon Gecko wielded a DynaTAC in Wall Street, the phone was seen as the icon of high-tech excess in the mid 1980s.

Buying one would set you back several thousand dollars just for the hardware, and for the vast majority of owners it was a status symbol as much as a practical tool. Keep in mind that this was also before the advent of email and voicemail.

Fast forward 20 years and mobile phones are nearly ubiquitous for everyone over the age of 12 (and many under,) and are considered a vital tool. I, like many people my age, don't even have a land line phone connection in my house.

Definitely a far cry from the days of mobile phones such as the DynaTAC being a fancy gizmo for the ultra-corporate types

1. GSMShaun Nichols: What good would mobile phones be without a network on which to use them? Just like we couldn't have the internet without the basic HTTP protocol, mobile communications would be significantly different today without GSM.

The GSM network is by far the most dominant way to use a mobile phone, particularly in Europe. This of course makes it easier to connect to a network and make a call, and the standard has grown hugely.

Then there's the ability to switch providers without giving up your handset. Phones on the GSM system use removable SIM cards to identify themselves, so users aren't tethered to a specific phone model or service provider (unless the vendor and carrier have an exclusivity deal, i.e. the iPhone on AT&T.)

Iain Thomson: The GSM network is a great example of logical thinking. In the early days of mobile networks, each provider had its own communications system, or hired it from someone else.

Compatability was a huge problem and stunted demand for mobile telephony. So in Europe people got together and in 1987 13 countries signed up for the GSM standard, and the rest is history.

Here in America another route was taken. Competition was deemed to be the best way to sort out the dominant mobile phone network, and Qualcomm won the race. However, this left a mishmash of competing standards and the nagging problem that phones in the US didn't work in Europe, or much of the rest of the world.

This is a classic example of why those who advocate the market sorting things out are sometimes wrong. Mobile telephony needed a starting point, so that all boats would rise as it took off, not just a few.

By co-operating on one simple point rather than competing, GSM became the dominant world network, and by far the most popular.