Smartphone Prediction in 1953 was Made by Telephone Executive | How Accurate Was It?

Urian B., Tech Times 12 January 2022, 01:01 am

A prediction made in 1953 by a telephone executive was able to describe what is now known as the smartphone. With that, the question is, how accurate was his prediction?

Telephone Company Executive Makes Prediction About the Modern Telephone

According to an old newspaper clipping posted by Open Culture, 41 years before IBM had finally created the first ever smartphone, a telephone company executive made a prediction regarding what a modern telephone could accomplish.

The statement was published in the Tacoma News Tribune back in April 11, 1953 when Steve Jobs was just a little over the age of two, per the the article. The newspaper quoted the president and director of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, Mark R. Sullivan. The company was based in San Francisco, California.

Sullivan Said Telephones would be Portable

Sullivan talked about the phone of tomorrow, saying that it was pure speculation but that in its final development, the telephone could be carried like a watch and might not even require a dial or something similar to it. The telephone executive even noted that users will be able to see each other should they want to.

Sullivan predicted a portable touchscreen handset with no dial 57 years before FaceTime ever debuted, Open Culture has noted. Sullivan even predicted the key feature of video chat, saying that the future phone could actually translate one language to another.

First Commercially Available Cellphone Released Before Sullivan's Passing

Sullivan was born in 1896 and passed away at age 89 just a few years after the first commercially available cell phone known as the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X was ever released. It wasn't until recently, however, that Sullivan's predictions regarding the modern smartphone actually came to life.

Sullivan's appearances at business conferences usually included his forecasts when it came to the telephone. In one headline, the Tacoma newspaper described the speech with a title "There'll Be No Escape in Future From Telephones."

Predictions on the Future Capabilities of the Modern Smartphone

Although Sullivan was able to correctly predict the future capabilities that ended up on the smartphones of today, it is not really likely that he would be able to predict the form factor as well as the size of the smartphones that are presently available in the market .

According to a story by PhoneArena, users will have to keep in mind that the transistor was just a few years old back in 1953. With that, the very first SoC was still 21 years away when the executive initially made his prediction regarding the future of telephones.

The executive, however, was not the only individual whoo saw phones with video chat capabilities in the future. A science Fiction author known as Isaac Asimov wrote an op-ed piece back in 1964 for The New York Times saying that in the future, communication devices would use a screen allowing users to see and hear the person they are calling.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Urian B.