DIY phone cases, faster charging, saving broken cables – you’ve heard all the most common
tips out there. But hidden gold? Roll-up smartphones of the future?! And why do they all look the
same today? Let’s crack this riddle!
The world saw the very first smartphone in 1992 when IBM announced the Simon Personal
Communicator. Even back then, this thing was selling for over $1,000! It was shaped like
a brick, heavy as a hammer, but it was smart! It had a touch screen and could send and receive
emails and faxes. It also had a calendar, address book, and organizer! Oooh, aaah!
Then came the era of smartphones in all kinds of weird shapes and sizes. The Motorola V70
blew everyone’s mind in 2002 with its 360° rotating keyboard. It looked like a fidget
spinner long before those were ever a thing! In 2003, we got the Nokia 7600. This phone
was shaped like a teardrop, and the keyboard was placed awkwardly around the screen in
the middle. The 2004 Haier P7 Pen Phone was a phone shaped like a pen that, ironically,
didn’t work as one. Did have a camera for that tiny thumb-sized screen, though! And
a built-in laser pointer!
The wacky phone shapes of the early 2000s came to an end when Apple released the first
iPhone in 2007 and started a new fashion: practicality over bizarre gimmicky shapes.
The phone’s thin rectangular body fit comfortably in the hand, and the screen was big enough
to not only see everything clearly but also allow for touch control! Since then, smartphones
have looked pretty much the same. Why? Because it works!
But just imagine: you’ve been developing a new revolutionary phone for years. You spent
millions to invest in all the latest features and even created new ones! Shortly before
the release, you come to the presentation of your biggest competitor's new phone. This
one is so awesome that yours seems like complete garbage. So you decide to start creating a
new phone from scratch. This happened to Android in 2007 when they saw Steve Jobs present the
first iPhone.
And look at us now: modern smartphones have more computing power than all of NASA’s
computers in 1969. Even more than the Orion space ship launched in 2014!
Get this: way back in 1926, Nicola Tesla said the whole world will be turned into a huge
brain thanks to wireless technology. Everyone will communicate and see each other from thousands
of miles away with little devices that fit into a pocket. Long before computers, cell
phones, or even TVs were around!
Now we can’t live without our pocket-sized devices. Some people even have a phobia of
being left without a phone or internet connection! Nomophobia – don’t catch a case of it!
In one German city, traffic lights are installed in the ground so that smombies (that’s people
walking with their eyes glued to their phone screens instead of seeing anything around
them) could notice the red signal and stop.
We’re so in love with our smartphones that clothing manufacturers are forced to change
the size of pockets to fit devices getting bigger and bigger!
Fun fact: Google didn’t start Android. They bought it for $50 million in 2005. By today’s
rate, that would $67 mil, more than enough to buy 3 of these brand new Bugattis– the
most expensive car today! With the chump change of $10 million left over, you could also get
2 of these bad boys, whose name I wouldn’t try to pronounce. (Koenigsegg CCXR Trevitas.)
The most expensive smartphone in the world is the Falcon Supernova iPhone 6 Pink Diamond
worth over $48 million. It’s a typical iPhone 6, but its case is covered in 24-karat gold
and platinum. Like a cherry on top, it has a massive pink diamond on the back. Man, don’t
leave that in the bathroom!
Your own phone has a tiny bit of gold in it too! There’s 1 gram of gold in 41 smartphones,
the same amount processed from a ton of ore. If you tried to get the 7.5 tons of gold extracted
from ore every single day using all the smartphones in the world, you’d run out of phones in
23 days.
Get ready for 5G mobile Internet – you’ll be able to download a 2-hour high-quality
movie on your phone or tablet within seconds! Such fast Internet will be a must for near-future
technologies: more advanced augmented and virtual reality, AI, and of course, game graphics.
Smartphones will also undergo many changes! Flexible ones with curved and folding screens
have already been released. In the near future, it’ll be so flexible that you can roll it
up and put it in your pocket, or wear it around your wrist like a bracelet!
Batteries won't require charging from electricity – they’ll be fueled by solar and kinetic
energy – when the phone is charged from movement. By the way, a power bank charged
by solar energy is a common thing now.
Scientists have created 5D disks. These are small, thin, transparent disks that can withstand
extreme temperatures, store data for millions of years, and hold 360 terabytes of memory!
In the future, it’ll become as common as ordinary flash drives and will be built into
smartphones.
Soon, you won’t need to buy a new phone if you want a cooler camera. You’ll just
replace the old camera with a new one. Google plans to launch modular phones that can be
assembled from different removable and replaceable parts, including the screen!
After that, humanity will probably move away from smartphones entirely. All the smartphone
functions will be built into ultra-thin lenses that users can control with their thoughts.
Virtuality will completely blend with reality, and artificial intelligence will be able to
replace a real person in communication and become your best friend!
But that’s all in the not-so-distant future. For now, you can spend your time finding fun
Easter eggs in your phone!
- Open the Safari browser, choose any site, and click the "Share" button. Among the opened
functions will be Read Mode. The symbol of this feature is Steve Jobs’ iconic round
glasses.
- In the virtual keyboard, the book Emoji contains an encrypted quote from Apple's famous
"Think Different" ad campaign. You've probably heard this slogan. But to see the quote, you’ll
need to extract the original file with the Emoji and zoom in on it. You won't be able
to see it on the phone screen because the text is teeny tiny.
- The Apple petal on the company logo isn’t just on the back of your phone. The icon of
the games section in the App Store is a redrawn petal from the logo.
- The Maps icon changed several times, and each time it showed a real address. Previously,
it referred us to the old Apple campus, and now it shows the completed new Apple Park
- The soundwave icon in the Voice Recorder isn’t random. Turn it on and say "apple"
– the phone will record a track with a very similar soundwave.
- In Androids, developers hide mini-games that visually match the name of the operating
system update. To find the game, go to Settings, About Phone. Click several times on Android
Version, and the image with the logo will appear. Click on the image again to launch
a mini-game! Have fun!