Historical Database: Smart Phone

Smart Phone....

LA Times (1983)
Preview Atari Looks to Alda to Give It an Adult Image: ALDA: Atari's New Image
"Atari has been extremely close-mouthed about this line due next spring, saying only that it will be a series of telecommunications products, including a "smart" phone."

NY Times: (1984)
Computer Learns it's Master's Voice
 "The Speech Command System includes virtually ever conceivable communications task, from voice recognition to dictation recording and smart phone features."

Proquest: (1985)

Itellicall Cashes in With Pay Phone

"Intellicall, which is privately held, made a technological leap by using a microprocessor that performs the functions of a monitoring operator -- it knows when a call has been answered, when it has been paid for and when coins should be returned.
Intellicall's so-called "smart phone" can distinguish between a busy signal, endless rings or a legitimate answer, said Adler.
The technology was developed at Adler's last business, Telephone Broadcasting Systems International of Richardson, which designed a system that would automatically dial a call and continue the connection only if the phone was answered."

JSTOR (1995)

Changing Office Designs: The Role of Technology?

"Sophisticated devices and their hidden technology may not faze some viewers. But even with explanatory labels, the advanced prototypes for the "virtual office" were, perhaps, a challenge for others. A "smart phone" designated user-friendly, from NYNEX merged telephone , computer and video technologies. A "leapfrog" computer system with color screen, able to respond to handwritten or keyboard commands, featured handheld, disengaged parts."

Project Muse: (2003)
The Cell Phone and the Crowd: Messianic Politics in the Contemporary Philippines
 "However, the economic advantages of texting are limited. For example, any transmission across cell networks is expensive, so that calling or texting from a Globe phone to a Smart phone is rarely done. Indeed, the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) had to intervene in late 1999 to get the two companies to improve interconnectivity and service as well as lower their costs. "

Today:
The term smart phone today refers to the mobile device that has the ability to call, text, video chat, update you on the weather, surf the internet, has email, takes pictures, can access social media, as well as other options that are "smart" and helpful in everyday life. These types of phones are extremely popular and widespread, as most phone carriers sell some variation of the smart phone, the most popular being Apple's iPhone. iPhones can interact with the user through voice activation, in which the user can talk to the phone, and the phone will comprehend and reply. They have become cheaper over time, and every day, a new application can be downloaded or installed onto a smart phone that makes it even more "smart"
 The closest to today's definition in the articles that I looked over was the JSTOR article, which considered the merging of the phone, computer and video tech....which is a solid summary of the functioning of a smartphone. Most of the earlier articles from the 1980's put the term smart phone in quotation marks, which to me makes it seem as though the idea of smart phones was fairly new and really the context of the terms just implies that they used the adjective smart to show that the technology in the machine of whatever they were describing was more advanced than seen before. It is true that some of these "smart phone" technologies did find it's way into the current definition, but it was really a way of describing how futuristic the item could be. The Chicago Tribune Archives, which end at 1990 did not have any trace of the term smart phone, which with its current usage, was truly coined in the 2000's.