From Tin Cans to Touchscreens: The 40 Most Important Phones in History
From Tin Cans to Touchscreens: The 40 Most Important Phones in History
Posted 03/26/2010 at 8:13am
| by Paul Lilly
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With all due respect to Alexander Graham Bell, he couldn't possibly have known that his patent for "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically" would one day give birth to the modern day smartphone. He couldn't have foreseen the wonders that we take for granted today, like text messaging and voice-to-text searches.
We now live in a connected world, and today's smartphones define what it means to be a power user. Want to look up turn-by-turn driving directions on your phone? There's an app for that. There's an app for just about everything, even if they're sometimes tough to find (we're looking at you, Android Marketplace).
But for as much as we rely on our iPhone, Nexus One, or BlackBerry, it wasn't that long ago when you wouldn't think of trying to cram a mobile phone in your pocket. Remember when pagers were all the craze? Like computers, communication devices continue to evolve at a rapid pace, becoming faster, more portable, and increasingly flexible in functionality. It's been a wild ride getting to where we are today, and to pay homage to that journey, we take a look back at 40 of the most important phone models of all time.
Tin Can Telephone
You probably thought we were going to kick things off with Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, but we'll get to that in a moment. It just wouldn't be fair to skip over the so-called tin can telly.
Image Credit: encorekb.com
Some of you may have constructed a tin can phone in elementary school as part of a science experiment, and give yourself extra credit if you remember the name Robert Hooke. Considered one of the most important scientists of the 17th century, Hooke discovered a way to "to hear one speak through a wall a yarrd thick...I have, by the help of a distended wire, propagated the sound to a very considerable distance in an instant." What a smarty pants.
Invented: 1664
Alexander Graham Bell's "Electrical Speech Machine"
You can't have a retrospective without a little controversy, and ours starts right at the beginning. How so? We're taking the mainstream route and crediting Alexander Graham Bell with introducing the first telephone. In reality, Bell became the first to receive a patent for what would later become the telephone, but it would be unfair to say he was alone in inventing the device. For that, we have to credit a handful of individuals, each of whom had various degrees of influence in what could be considered one of the most important inventions of all time (agriculture, modern medicine, and beer being some of the others).
Image Credit: acmi.net.au
Pictured above is Bell's first commercial telephone. This consisted of a single transmitter/receiver jammed into a rectangular wooden box. The opening was used both to speak into, and to hear the other party.
Invented: 1876
Butterstamp Receiver
In 1877, Alexander Graham Bell, his future father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbary, and Thomas Sanders formed what would become the Bell Telephone Company. One year later, the company came up with the Buttersamp receiver, named such because it resembled a dairy butterstamp. If you were to take it apart, you'd find a permanent bar magnet with a coil of wire wrapped around it, along with an iron diaphragm in front of the coil. This would form the basis of many later receivers.
Image Credit: bobsoldphones.net
Early on, chatty Cathies would both speak into and listen through the same device, which meant continually moving the Butterstamp from mouth to the ear. Later on, the receiver and transmitter would consist of two different parts.
Invented: 1877
Pay Phone
In hindsight, Mike Brady should have known better than to call up a client on a home pay phone to discuss a potential multi-million dollar deal, but that doesn't mean his idea to install a pay phone in his living room was flawed. Just the opposite -- we think it was brilliant. The alternative? Fend off six school-age children, half of whom were girls, in the battle for one phone line, and do so before the advent of call waiting, cell phones for the masses, or Facebook. As if!
Mike had it right, and even offered to increase everyone's allowance to accommodate two phone calls per day. Talk about a fair deal, especially when we can't think of a single episode in which these supposed do-gooders were seen doing any chores -- presumably the reason Alice was hired in the first place.
"But I average at least 10 [calls per day]," Jan Brady pleads.
Sure you do, Jan, and since we're all clearly exaggerating, you're also prettier and more popular than Marcia.
Fun Fact: If not for William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut, this famous episode might never exist. It was Gray who first patented the concept of a pay phone over 130 years ago.
Invented (pay phone): 1889
Wilhelm Candlestick
Walter Wilhelm, an electrician by trade, improved upon the Butterstamp receiver and every other phone of the time with his double diaphragm design. Wilhelm phones wouldn't be the first to employ essentially two Butterstamp receivers -- one for talking and one for listening -- but unlike other phones of the time, it came with two separate chambers and diaphragms.
Image Credit: atcaonline.com
Other similar looking and functioning phones would follow, but the Wilhelm's fate was sealed when the Wilhelm Telephone Mfg. company tried on more than one occasion to sell its transmitter to Bell. In 1913, Wilhelm Telephone Mfg. went out of business.
Invented: 1896
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loondawg
June 16, 2010 at 2:22pm
This was probably a lot of people's first phone. (Plus it's got life in that it's a fun project to hack an old one into a working phone)
gbucknell
April 30, 2010 at 8:59am
You forgot one of the most important phones in TV History. More important than Batman's, Get Smart's, Fred Flinstone's, and Mike Brady's phone was the phone use by Captain Kirk on Star Trek. That communicator directly predicted AND influenced the creation of the cell phone universe that we all now live in.
gooberp
April 07, 2010 at 2:56pm
You'd think that since 1948, AT&T's cell network would have been upgraded at least a little since the days of it's first radio car phone. Based on my experience, it's not any different.
Queenof1
March 28, 2010 at 7:44pm
this was a great article! Brought back memories of my Strawberry Shortcake intercom phones :)
The Relic
March 28, 2010 at 5:00pm
Heh, I remember we had one of the Model 500 rotary phones back when I was a kid (this was the 60s and 70s). I still have one here (though unused; my desk phone is a replica Nick and Nora Charles phone).
Bizarre
March 27, 2010 at 8:42pm
wow, some hatin' for the RAZR! In my opinion a black V3 is still one of the cooler phones out there, and if you don't count spart phones, among the coolest. It hasn't aged much, and is still one of the thinnest phones out there, probably because it was the first to reach the reasonable limit of thin-ness in a non-flexible mobile device.
Slugbait
March 27, 2010 at 3:40pm
Personally, I was looking forward to seeing what would be written about the Nokia 8110...
kevintanner800
March 26, 2010 at 12:44pm
Why is the Iphone in there twice? the Iphone was/is not game changing, the only thing it did is prove how many retards are alive in the world.
festiva_man
March 26, 2010 at 10:46am
Good article but the see transparent telephone was always my favorite. I loved seeing the inner workings of things like that.
jbelkin
March 26, 2010 at 9:48am
That ubiquitous infomercial started people realizing that a phone did not need to be square or rectangularly shaped AND that a phone could be cheap - so cheap it's a free giveaway ...
Did the 1990's Nokia you showed had the changing faceplate?, I think that was a game changer also ... the Nokia candybar phone?
tri8gman
March 26, 2010 at 9:12am
I don't really see Apple slogans and "power user" being appropriate in the same paragraph.
Apple doesn't market to Power Users. :P
ushim6
March 26, 2010 at 7:49am
It's perfect for me. I'm in a family plan, still have 1.5 years of contract left, so I just bought the danged thing. No need for a data plan since I'm on campus all the time, blanketed in wifi, and AT&T can't make me since it's unsubsidised.
I may get data sometime in the future, but honestly it's only on the road I miss the data connection, but I always do have SMS to make me feel more connected.
JoetheMobster
March 26, 2010 at 7:42am
creepy, when I was a child the family phone was just like that Western 500 rotary phone...and my mother had it on a doiley that looked exactly like the one in the photo!
SpazzAttack
March 26, 2010 at 4:10am
Still using my Motorola V3M. I very rarely text, so I don't need a full keyboard. Mine has the extended battery, so I don't need to charge it often. And it still makes phone calls, too!!!
Pball1224
March 25, 2010 at 11:33pm
First Car phone at $15, a bargain by today's standards? Uh, did inflation cross your mind? $15
in 1948 is equivalant to $135 today. I don't call that a bargain.Oh, and the Western Electric 1500 (touchtone) is nearly IDENTICAL to the phone on my desk at work, except mine is black, and includes a volume knob on the handset. The whole office of ~2800 employees uses them. I can hear the gasp as this is read. But it does exactly what I need it to do... make phone calls.
davisman123
March 25, 2010 at 11:17pm
I was surprised that the NGAGE wasn't on this list. While it wasn't the greatest phone or game system, it was way ahead of its time in terms of combining both worlds. It deserves a place on this list.
deadsolid
March 25, 2010 at 10:17pm
Where is the fucking Banana phone???
Why are there two iPhones on the list? Apple didn't do shit with the 3Gs.
Danthrax66
March 25, 2010 at 9:14pm
the iphone is a useless piece of crap just like all apple products.
greencpu
March 25, 2010 at 6:36pm
no football phone?!?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWtx9JwNzmY
FOR SHAME
excelguru
March 25, 2010 at 8:02pm
Damn, you beat me to it on the football phone.
And what about E.T.'s wind-powered, saw-blade phone with the umbrella antenna? I mean, that damned thing could reach OUTER SPACE, for crying out loud! How cool was THAT!?
Paul_Lilly
March 25, 2010 at 8:47pm
Damn, can't believe I overlooked E.T.'s homebrewed phone. Very nice suggestion.
-Paul Lilly
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