The IBM Simon Personal Communicator celebrated its 20th birthday on August 16, which is the date it first hit the shelves in the US back in 1994. The IBM Simon wasn’t called a smartphone then, because the term didn’t actually exist twenty years ago, but it’s still classified as the world’s first smartphone.
IBM sold around 50,000 phones at the time and the IBM Simon was able to operate within a network of 15 US states. The handset came with software apps, calendar, email and the ability to connect to a fax machine, and you could also make phone calls. Needless to say, it was very popular among businessmen and women. The phone featured a green LCD display, weighed 500 grams and came with a pen stylus.
The IBM Simon cost $899 in 1994, which would now translate into over $1400, and it inspired a number of phones that came after it in terms of design.
