10 surprising facts about mobile phones

Over the years, mobile phones have become a very important part of our lives as it has become a very useful and handy companion for communication across a wide range of platforms.

But how much do you know about that device which arguably is turning out to be one of man’s closests companions in the last three decades?

Read also: Skype goes musical

Listed below are 10 amazing facts about mobile phones you may not have an inkling about.

1. The first mobile phone was the Motorola Dyna TAC 8000X invented in 1983 by Martin Copper, a senior employee at Motorola. It could only store 30 contacts with a weight of around 1.1 kg and offered talk time of 30 minutes. It’s retail price? Roughly $3,999.

2. The first mobile phone call was made on April 3, 1973. It was placed to Dr. Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs by Martin Cooper.

3. The first smart phone was made by IBM: It is actually over 20-years-old, and was launched on August 16, 1994 by IBM. Initially code named the “Angler” , the phone was given the name “Simon Personal Communicator” before its final release in 1994. It was the first commercially available touch screen phone which could be easily operated with the help of stylus or fingertip and came pre-installed with functions like a calendar, calculator, address book, and Note Pad.

5. It is interesting to note that nearly 90% of the mobile phones in Japan are waterproof, as the people of Japan are very fond of mobile phones that they use it even in the shower.

6. In 2012, Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones in 14 weeks — or 262 phones per-minute and 4 phones per-second.

7. World’s most expensive phone by Apple is worth $15.3 million: As we are moving ahead in this century, almost everyone has a phone, though some of them have smart phones and some of them don’t. Everyone cannot afford to enjoy the luxuries of life, but there are a few lucky ones who can. For those lucky people, Apple had launched its iPhone5 fully coated with 26 carat black diamond. It was launched with the price of $15.3 million and became the world’s most expensive phone.

9. Android is owned by more than 80% of users in the world: There’s no doubt that the “iPhone is the king of smartphones”, but despite being the biggest seller, Apple’s operating system doesn’t actually dominate the smartphone market. According to comScore, Android crushes the iOS market share by 82.8%.

10. The Highest Mobile bill was $201,000: We all are a little irritated by the ever increasing bills we pay, mobile bill being one of them. Well, imagine being Celina Aarons, who got the biggest shock of her life when she opened her cell phone bill and found she owed $201,000.‎ The reason? Celina had two brothers who were deaf and mute and communicated with her via text over their phones. Usually it wasn’t a problem thanks to a standard data plan. But on a trip to Canada one brother sent over 2,000 text messages and downloaded videos at a cost of around $2,000 per video.

10. 65% of smartphone users don’t download a single app in any given month: Despite the fact that almost 2.8 billion people are using smartphones in the world, a Comscore report says that only 35% of users are downloading an app in a given month.

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