Smartphone

The smartphone emerged from a July 1992 epiphany at IBM's Boca Raton facility. Frank Canova, an electrical engineer, realized that MOSFET technology had shrunk integrated circuits small enough to combine a phone, computer, and touchscreen into a single handheld device. By demonstrating a prototype using a touchscreen and CRT to management, he initiated what would become the first true smartphone—though the world wouldn't recognize it as such for another fifteen years.

The adjacent possible had aligned through multiple technological threads. Resistive touchscreens existed but were confined to industrial applications. Cellular networks had spread across urban America. LCDs were becoming practical for handheld devices. And crucially, x86 processors had shrunk enough to fit in portable hardware. What Canova conceived was the fusion: a device where the phone was merely one application among many.

Development raced from August to November 1992, culminating in a working prototype codenamed "Sweetspot" for the COMDEX trade show in Las Vegas. The November 16, 1992 debut stunned the industry. The next day, USA Today's front page featured Canova holding the prototype. The device could make calls, send faxes, manage calendars, take notes, and—astonishingly—run third-party applications via a PCMCIA slot. It was a pocket computer that happened to make phone calls.

IBM initially approached Motorola to manufacture the commercial product, codenamed "Angler." Motorola declined, fearing IBM could become a mobile competitor. IBM turned to Mitsubishi instead. BellSouth, which had seen the COMDEX demonstration, became the distribution partner. Executives there christened it the "Simon Personal Communicator" before its public debut at the Wireless World Conference on November 2, 1993 in Orlando.

Simon launched commercially in August 1994, sold through BellSouth Cellular for $899 with a two-year contract or $1,099 without—equivalent to over $2,100 in 2021 dollars. The 4.5-inch resistive touchscreen, x86 processor, and MS-DOS-compatible operating system made it genuinely programmable. Users could install additional software. It was, by any reasonable definition, a smartphone.

But timing worked against it. The device weighed over a pound. Battery life lasted barely an hour. The screen was monochrome. And cellular networks remained expensive and limited. BellSouth sold 50,000 units before discontinuing Simon in February 1995.

The concept lay dormant for over a decade. Palm created the PDA category—Canova himself joined Palm in 1997 to lead engineering on the PalmPilot. BlackBerry married keyboards to email. But the true smartphone renaissance awaited the iPhone in 2007, which combined multi-touch, the mobile internet, and an app store to prove Simon's 1992 thesis correct: the phone was just one app.

Path dependence explains why Simon failed while iPhone succeeded. Simon required expensive cellular data on analog networks. By 2007, digital networks, WiFi, and years of miniaturization had solved the problems Simon faced. The iPhone didn't invent the smartphone—Frank Canova did, fifteen years earlier—but it arrived when the adjacent possible had fully matured.

By 2026, over 6 billion smartphones exist worldwide. Canova's vision of a handheld computer that happens to make phone calls has become so ubiquitous that the calling function is often the least-used feature. The most prolific Palm inventor never received the recognition the iPhone's creators did, but every smartphone user carries his idea in their pocket.