Monday marks the 50th anniversary of the first cellphone call, according to a news release. Motorola engineer Martin Cooper stood in midtown Manhattan and placed the first public call from a handheld portable cellphone to the headquarters of Bell Labs in New Jersey.

This call forever changed the way we communicate, which allows people to make calls from nearly anywhere, the release says. Most Americans – 82% – use a smartphone versus a “regular” phone.

“As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the cellphone, it is exciting to look back on how far the technology has come,” said Joshua Olbricht, UScellular’s director of retail sales and operations for east Iowa. “As the technology evolves over the next 50 years, we will continue to invest in our network to ensure our customers can connect to what matters most, while also providing tools to help them have a healthy relationship with their devices.”

The evolution of and increased reliance on cellphones has been revolutionary, as you can now do almost anything on your phone. Some highlights include:

• 1984: More than 10 years after Motorola’s DynaTAC cellphone, the first truly portable phone – the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x – was created and made available to consumers. It cost nearly $4,000 per device. It weighed more than 2 pounds and provided users with 35 minutes of talk time.
• 1989: The first flip phone was introduced – the Motorola MicroTAC. It was the first pocket-size phone and provided twice the battery life, which allowed for more than one hour of talk time.
• 1992: The first text message (“Merry Christmas”) was sent. Soon after that, phones were introduced with full QWERTY keyboards. The Nokia Communicator 9000 debuted in the mid-1990s.
• 1993: The first “smartphone” was introduced by IBM. The Simon Personal communicator could be used for calls, faxes and text messages. It also featured a built-in calendar, address book, notes folders and appointment scheduler.
• 2000: Sharp launched the first cellphone with a camera.
• 2002: The first BlackBerry phones were released in 2002. Offering cellular phone service, wireless e-mail capability and internet access, the new “smartphones” took the business world by storm4.
• 2006: The LG Prada was the first mobile phone with a touchscreen.
• 2007: Apple’s first iPhone was introduced and boasted an all-in-one digital music player, camera and internet-enabled PDA device equipped with a touch interface that replaced the traditional QWERTY keyboard.
• 2008: The HTC Dream Slider – the first Android phone – was made available to consumers.
• 2010: The first 4G device was introduced in the U.S. The HTC Evo6 offered a larger touchscreen, two cameras, GPS navigation, HDMI output and mobile hotspot capability.
• 2017: The iPhone X offered the first facial recognition security feature on smartphones.
• Today: 5G technology is being deployed, while 5G enabled devices can access connected homes, artificial intelligence and virtual reality to integrate our daily lives with a touch of our smartphones. Cellphone designs have started to become larger and simpler, which makes room for a larger screen and fewer buttons. Today’s smartphones feature shaped and curved screens, high-quality cameras, increased storage and battery life and mobile payments.

Customer service plans have evolved over the past 50 years to reflect how devices are being used. The first wireless plans were for talking only and centered around how many “buckets” of minute a plan offered each month. As technology has evolved, customer plans have grown from simple voice plans to call and text message plans to voice, text and data plans, so customers can utilize their devices for a multitude of things.

Here is a quick look at the evolution of technology over the past 50 years:

• 1G brought wireless phone calls.
• 2G provided text messaging.
• 3G supplied mobile internet access.
• 4G created streaming and enhanced services.
• 5G has amplified all these technologies and provides access to the IOT (Internet of Things) and other new technologies.

This year also marks UScellular’s 40th anniversary.