When did smartphones become popular?

Smartphones have existed since the early-mid 1990's (with the advent of the IBM Simon) and gained some traction during the early 2000's with phones such as the Danger Hiptop and Blackberry devices, but they didn't become popular until much later. tl;dr: Smartphones became “popular” in the early 2010's. Long answer:. read more

Apple becomes the largest smartphone vendor by numbers and revenue, selling 18.6m iPhones, just ahead of Samsung's 17.5m, in the year's first quarter. Android becomes the best-selling smartphone platform, with a 36.6% share, ahead of Symbian's 27%. read more

In the early 2000s, Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Palm OS, and Windows Mobile (then known as PocketPC 2000) became increasingly popular. With capabilities such as email, fax, Web browsing, and other enterprise-centric features, so did form factors that catered to such use cases. read more

Smartphones matter partly because of their ubiquity. They have become the fastest-selling gadgets in history, outstripping the growth of the simple mobile phones that preceded them. They outsell personal computers four to one. Today about half the adult population owns a smartphone; by 2020, 80% will. read more