Today is the 40th anniversary of the mobile phone. For many of us, the past 15 or so years have been a close developing relationship between our life and word styles and the mobile phone so there doesn’t seem to be much point in repeating a history that sounds similar to perhaps your own over this time.
For my part I recall the mid 90’s when only a few mobiles were in use. On a delayed train I had the pleasure of handing my phone to my fellow commuters so they could contact their loved ones to let them know they would be late. It was clear to me at that time the mobile phone was meant to be a little reliable machine that everyone could have in some shape or form, not just those who’s job or industry enabled.
Today the phones we see go far further than many of us could have imagined in those days. As a telecoms entrepreneur I struggled to see the value of those little LCD screens and how, with some development, they would be enabled with fun games. I struggled to see the business value.
But once the Iphone came along, even I could see what a massive change to our lives this would mean. The tip of the iceberg provided so many opportunities to provide innovation that in my opinion had been partly stifled with the more inflexible operating systems up to that point. The ability to select and download apps made by engineers in their bedrooms for a few cents but selling in their many thousands, apps with an ever increasing wide range of business and consumer uses with the hardware, in essence a smart connected pocket computer, is no short of a revolution in technology.
So of course, Melody Pods is here today to add its own slant on the benefit of smartphones and their ability to create better ways for businesses to work.
I wonder what the next forty years has in store for us.