The first BlackBerry was also introduced in 1999. The BlackBerry was known for its super easy email service, with more than half of its users admitting to sending emails while on the toilet, earning the manufacturer the nickname CrackBerry.
2000: Finland’s Nokia 3310 crashes off store shelves, unscathed of course, selling nearly 126 million units. In Japan, the first commercial camera phone, the Sharp J-SH04, was launched in November 2000 in Japan. The only downside? You could only use it in Japan. It wasn’t until 2002, when the Nokia 6750 was introduced, that the first camera phone appeared in Europe.
2007: The iPhone is launched. Launched in the UK only on O2 and priced at a then eye-watering $499, Nokia’s CEO confidently believes it’s just a “cool phone” that won’t translate into market share.
2008: The first Android phone comes in the form of the T-Mobile G1. Now known as the OG of Android phones, it was a far cry from the high-end Android smartphones we use today. Not least because it retained a physical keyboard and a BlackBerry-style trackball for navigation.
Nepal was one of the first countries in South Asia to launch 3G services. Its 3G network also covers Mount Everest.
2009: O2 publicly announces that it has successfully demonstrated 4G connectivity using six LTE base stations in Slough, UK. The technology was supplied by Huawei and achieved a peak downlink rate of 150Mbps.
WhatsApp was also launched that year, allowing customers to send and receive calls and messages over the internet. The messaging system now has 1.2 billion users sending over 10 billion messages a day. This makes it more popular than traditional text messaging.
2010: Samsung launches the first Galaxy S smartphone. Replacing former Android giant HTC, the Samsung Galaxy S line remains the most popular Android brand.
2016: The Pokemon Go app launches worldwide. The free augmented reality game uses the smartphone camera and location to show real-world Pokemon characters.
2017: The Nokia 3310 is revived with a new version equipped with basic web browsing, a color screen and even a camera. That said, it still retained some of our favorite features from the original 3310, including the iconic design, long battery life, and even an updated version of the Snake. Needless to say, it made a splash at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) tech expo, becoming one of the hottest products of the year.
Apple marked a decade in smartphone gaming with the full-screen iPhone X and ditched the physical home button for the first time.