The IBM Simon Personal Communicator, the First Smartphone, Introduced

8/16/1994 to 2/1995
A Simon Personal Communicator in its charging base

A Simon Personal Communicator in its charging base

Distributed in the United States only by BellSouth Cellular Corp between August 1994 and February 1995, the IBM Simon Personal Communicator, a handheld, touchscreen cellular phone and Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), was the first "smartphone," though the term was not coined until 1997. The phone operated within a 15 state network; about 50,000 Simons were sold.

"In addition to its ability to make and receive cellular phone calls, Simon was also able to send and receive faxese-mails and cellular pages. Simon featured many applications including an address book, calendar, appointment scheduler, calculator, world time clock, electronic note pad, handwritten annotations and standard and predictive stylus input screen keyboards" (Wikipedia article on IBM Simon, accessed 08-16-2014).

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