A brief history of the design of mobile phones

The development of mobile phones has been marked by a general trend of becoming more portable and offering more functionality.

In the first wave of HCI (1980s) mobile phones were very new and were used exclusively for calling. Heavy bricks of hardware that you kept at home, and if necessary with you for work or because one was rich, if we consider the poor battery life and lack of portability. Businesses and consumers used it because they were desperate for a quicker method of communication despite its pitfalls. It was expensive to call, and few people could be on the mobile phone at home. The main method of communication was still in person, email, and mail; the mobile phone needed to perform its function of being easy to dial a number, make a call, and then hang up. This, alongside the limits of technology at the time, meant they had: large, mechanical buttons, a small screen that showed the numbers you had dialled in and the status of the call, a large frame so you could hold it in your hand and grip it easily, and it was mainly auditory. Style was not the concern at the time, so you can see that these phones had monochromatic colours and minimal decoration.

However, as technology advanced and the energy requirements of mobile phones decreased, you could make a smaller, more portable cordless phone for a lower price. This increased the popularity massively as it allowed a greater audience of people to use a mobile phone; this network of usage and the convenience of a portable method of communication led to even more popularity. Designers started looking into other factors, seeing the interaction with a mobile phone as a social system, and thus, we entered the second wave of HCI.

The 1990s introduced us to mobile phones which started to take on more of a social role (in the second wave of HCIs). You could text and phone your friends and family; instead of meeting up or having to wait until you could communicate with somebody, you could instantaneously message them. Granted, it still costs money to do so, but for a far lower price. They started becoming an accessory rather than a necessity for those who *had* to have a mobile phone. Mobile phones were used throughout popular media like TVs and shows, it became a well-known and easily recognisable accessory. Pagers were introduced for those who couldn’t afford mobile phones. Having a mobile phone was seen as “cool” for youth culture and an indicator of wealth. So you start seeing a slight variety in colour and design as designers wanted their phone to look “cooler”. They also started caring more about the interaction with the phone, was the battery life long enough for a continuous day of texting? Was the phone’s width small enough that it could slide into your pocket? But the design saw its most drastic changes in the 2000s with the third wave of HCI, when it completely changed all of human culture.

In the 2000s, mobile phones became so much cheaper and more accessible that they were ubiquitous. And so everyone had a phone, people are, of course, individuals and want their accessories to reflect their individuality, that's where you start seeing a divergence in the design of mobile phones as designers wanted to appeal to the ever-growing market for exciting and new phones. Even today, as phones have homogenised into 1 single looking design, we look back to the 2000s for the exhilarating new designs.

Phones with strange button arrangements, flip phones, multi and neon coloured phones, designs on the front and back, sliding phones, vertical and landscape phones, and many, many more were created. This was to appeal to the young and ever-changing youth who wanted something out of the ordinary, something to show off and to express themselves with. As people became more dexterous, tapping on these mobile phones, and the technology behind the mechanical keys improved, the keys became sleeker and more satisfying to tap on, with an improved focus on being able to type quickly. Some phones started placing the keys in ways that would make holding and typing on the phone easier and quicker.

Then in 2007, the iPhone came out with its touchscreen display and changed the game. With the touchscreen, what used to be a mechanical limitation of where you could physically place buttons and elements faded into nothing. You could design however you wanted, wherever you wanted and make any functionality you desired. This was seen for its incredulity, and other producers started making phones of a similar style with a large touchscreen and a few buttons at the bottom of the phone. These phones were also very thin, compared to previous generations, allowing for greater portability and ease of use.

One key thing that mobile phones replaced was a camera. You could now take a photo, then send it to someone on the same device. You could also browse through past photos with ease. Although the quality was not the same as a traditional camera, for “vibey” photos you want to upload online, this was more than sufficient. So we started seeing a shift in online culture, uploading spontaneous photos and building aesthetics.

As phones became more portable, a desire was sought out in the market - we want phones to replace other things that we used to carry around. This was already happening, phones replaced needing a physical clock. But now with such large degrees of freedom with a touchscreen, camera and the advance of the internet, mobile phones started quickly eating up other accessories. This was also driven by the fact that, choosing which phone was discretionary, why choose Apple? Why choose this model of the phone? They needed to compete with each other and provide more value to consumers.

But what I argue the greatest thing the iPhone did was bring about the age of software over hardware. Businesses and consumers realised the great potential of software. More attention was given to how it felt using a touchscreen, and a screen became the primary interface that many spent the majority of their time interacting with. Apps were designed to hook your attention and keep you there, minimising the friction for you to leave the app. We started looking to software for entertainment, pleasure, convenience, and to hold everything we need. So the OS was designed for ease of use to frequently used apps (e.g. swiping on the lockscreen to get to the camera app, having a bar at the bottom to customise constant apps).

I use an iPhone, and the main reason I do is because my dad used an iPhone, and that’s why he bought me one for my first phone. Now that I’m so entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, I can’t be bothered to get out. This is really common. Since mobile phones have become so intricately linked to our lives, ecosystems and networks have been built and pushed by companies to try and lock us into their particular brand. From colouring messages differently on iMessage to indicate what phone the person has, to using lightning port on phones, and to having AirDrop work exclusively on apple product, Apple has created a wall to exit the ecosystem. This is seen culturally too; there’s an air of exclusivity and luxury with Apple products, something to brag about, and that can be seen in their design: minimal, clean, but high-quality looking products and apps.

Overall, the fast development of mobile phones has shifted culture massively, and we see the effect on the physical and internal design of phones. A design language has developed, and we are now fluent when interacting with a phone (lockscreen -> log in -> home screen -> swipe and tap to move about).