<P> Today, smartphones largely fulfill most people's needs for a telephone, digital camera and video camera, GPS navigation, a media player, clock, news, calculator, web browser, handheld video game player, flashlight, compass, an address book, note - taking, digital messaging, an event calendar, etc . Typical smartphones will include one or more of the following sensors: magnetometer, proximity sensor, barometer, gyroscope, or accelerometer . Since 2010, smartphones adopted integrated virtual assistants, such as Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana, BlackBerry Assistant and Samsung Bixby . Most smartphones produced from 2012 onward have high - speed mobile broadband 4G LTE capability . </P> <P> In 1999, the Japanese firm NTT DoCoMo released the first smartphones to achieve mass adoption within a country . Smartphones became widespread in the late 2000s . In the third quarter of 2012, one billion smartphones were in use worldwide . Global smartphone sales surpassed the sales figures for feature phones in early 2013 . </P> <P> The first commercially available device that could be properly referred to as a "smartphone" began as a prototype called "Angler" developed by Frank Canova in 1992 while at IBM and demonstrated in November of that year at the COMDEX computer industry trade show . A refined version was marketed to consumers in 1994 by BellSouth under the name Simon Personal Communicator . In addition to placing and receiving cellular calls, the touch screen - equipped Simon could send and receive faxes and emails . It included an address book, calendar, appointment scheduler, calculator, world time clock and notepad, as well as other visionary mobile applications such as maps, stock reports and news . The term "smart phone" or "smartphone" was not coined until a year after the introduction of the Simon, appearing in print as early as 1995, describing AT&T's PhoneWriter Communicator . </P> <P> The first integration of data signals with telephony was conceptualized by Nikola Tesla in 1909 and pioneered by Theodore Paraskevakos beginning in 1968 with his work on transmission of electronic data through telephone lines . In 1971, while he was working with Boeing in Huntsville, Alabama, Paraskevakos demonstrated a transmitter and receiver that provided additional ways to communicate with remote equipment . This formed the original basis for what is now known as caller ID . The first caller ID equipment was installed at Peoples' Telephone Company in Leesburg, Alabama and was demonstrated to several telephone companies . The original and historic working models are still in the possession of Paraskevakos . </P>

Who came up with the idea of cell phones