Smartphones
The touchscreen smartphone is only as old as the 2007 iPhone, yet it's now the main route online for much of the world.
By Greg Goodwin · Published July 3, 2026 · Updated October 24, 2026
Cheat Sheet
- A smartphone combines the core functions of a mobile phone with a full computer operating system, enabling internet browsing, app installation, and countless functions beyond calling and texting.
- The 2007 release of the original iPhone is widely credited with popularizing the modern touchscreen-first smartphone design that nearly all subsequent phones have followed.
- Smartphones run on one of two dominant operating systems worldwide — Apple's iOS or Google's Android — which together power the vast majority of devices globally.
- Modern smartphone cameras rely heavily on computational photography, using software processing rather than purely optical hardware to dramatically improve image quality beyond what the tiny lens and sensor alone could achieve.
- Smartphones have become the primary or sole internet access point for a substantial share of the world's population, particularly in regions where traditional computer ownership remains less common.
- Concerns about smartphone overuse and its effects on attention, sleep, and mental health, particularly among teenagers, have become a significant and ongoing area of research and public debate.
The 60-Second Version
A smartphone combines the core functions of a mobile phone with a full computer operating system, enabling internet browsing, app installation, and countless functions beyond calling and texting. The 2007 release of the original iPhone is widely credited with popularizing the modern touchscreen-first smartphone design that nearly all subsequent phones have followed. Smartphones run on one of two dominant operating systems worldwide, Apple's iOS or Google's Android, which together power the vast majority of devices globally. Modern smartphone cameras rely heavily on computational photography, using software processing rather than purely optical hardware to dramatically improve image quality beyond what the tiny lens and sensor alone could achieve. Smartphones have become the primary or sole internet access point for a substantial share of the world's population, particularly in regions where traditional computer ownership remains less common. Concerns about smartphone overuse and its effects on attention, sleep, and mental health, particularly among teenagers, have become a significant and ongoing area of research and public debate.
The Long Version
From Mobile Phone to Pocket Computer
A smartphone is fundamentally distinguished from an older-style mobile phone by running a full operating system capable of installing and running third-party software applications, effectively functioning as a general-purpose pocket computer that also happens to make phone calls, rather than a purpose-built calling device with a few limited extra features.
The iPhone Moment
While earlier devices had attempted various combinations of phone and computer functionality, the original iPhone's 2007 release is widely credited with popularizing the now-standard touchscreen-first design, abandoning physical keyboards in favor of a large touch display, a design template that nearly every subsequent major smartphone, including competing Android devices, has followed ever since.
The Two-Platform World
Today's smartphone market is dominated by two operating systems: Apple's iOS, used exclusively on iPhones, and Google's Android, used by the large majority of other manufacturers worldwide, together accounting for the vast majority of smartphones in use globally, leaving relatively little room for alternative operating systems to gain meaningful market share.
Computational Photography and Global Internet Access
Modern smartphone cameras achieve dramatically better image quality than their small lenses and sensors alone would suggest, largely thanks to computational photography, software processing techniques that combine multiple images, adjust lighting, and sharpen detail well beyond what the raw optical hardware captures. Separately, smartphones have become the primary or only means of internet access for a substantial share of the global population, particularly in regions where traditional home computer ownership never became widespread, making the smartphone in many parts of the world a more foundational piece of digital infrastructure than the personal computer ever was.
Why People Care
Smartphones have reshaped communication, commerce, media consumption, and daily habits more thoroughly and more quickly than perhaps any consumer technology before them, while also raising genuine, still-unresolved questions about their effects on attention and wellbeing.
Glossary
- Operating system (OS)
- The core software that manages a smartphone's hardware and runs its apps, most commonly iOS or Android.
- Computational photography
- The use of software processing, rather than purely optical hardware, to enhance smartphone camera image quality.
- App store
- A digital marketplace, like Apple's App Store or Google Play, through which smartphone users download and install apps.
- iOS
- Apple's mobile operating system, used exclusively on iPhones.
- Android
- Google's mobile operating system, used by the majority of non-Apple smartphone manufacturers worldwide.
Go Deeper
More to Explore
- Gaming Consoles
The video game industry nearly died in 1983 — and the console that revived it did so partly by refusing to call itself a "video game system" at all.
- Wearables
Your wrist gadget quietly tracks steps, heart rate, and sleep, and some models even keep an eye on blood oxygen.
- Smart Home Devices
Smart home gadgets' biggest headache has been less the tech than getting one brand's devices to talk to another's.
- Drones
A technology that went from a specialized military tool to something available at ordinary consumer electronics stores in a remarkably short span of time.
- Wi-Fi
Invisible radio waves, a pun on hi-fi, and the reason your living room has a worse signal than your kitchen.