The First Book on Smartphones!

Now that we all have smartphones you may be interested in how this all came about. There are quite a few books about the smartphone technology and business but one of the first books that emerged after the iPhone era is by SemiWiki blogger and former EETimes Editor Majeed Ahmad:

In retrospect, the notion of a smartphone emerged in 1998 when Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson joined hands to turn the British computing platform Psion into a smartphone juggernaut called Symbian. However, the smartphone industry remained in doldrums until 2007 when Apple rewrote the mobile playbook with its iconic iPhone device.

What’s so special about this book? For a start, the book has it all—smartphone episodes about Nokia to Blackberry to Apple and Google. Next, it offers rich information on history, evolution, and technology and business development cycles of smartphones. It also has some very nice reviews from industry experts around the world:

Henning Wriedt, a veteran technology journalist, likes the book because it covers the era of the smartphone from A to Z. “I have something in my archive, which gives me a complete and detailed overview of an important part of this industry, spanned across nearly 20 years.”

A smartphone business archive for technology buffs

Then there is Lyle Appleyard, a computer programmer from Manitoba, Canada, who accidentally discovered this book on Goodreads. “I am not sure that I would have picked this book up if I had not won it on Goodreads. As a history buff and a bit of a geek, this book turned out to be right up my alley.”

When Appleyard began reading the book, he wondered if there was enough material about smartphone technology and business to justify a book with over 400 pages. He wrote after reading the book: “The author did a good job of gathering a ton of information for this book. It was intriguing to read about all the different companies that contributed to the development of the smartphone. Some I knew, some I had never heard of. It was interesting to read about the problems they had, the problems they caused and the possible future of the industry.”

The book provides a detailed treatment of Apple’s rivalry with Google

Sometimes technology books are a dry read which is not the case with this one. What is also unique about this book is that it turns a highly technical subject into an interesting read. “The author did a good job of explaining things,” Appleyard wrote. “It was very educational and shed some light on the smartphone and its history.”

The smartphone has been the key driver of semiconductor devices for nearly a decade. The book delves into both the hardware and software sides of the smartphone business. It narrates, for instance, how Steve Jobs gave the go-ahead for the iPhone project only when Apple engineers assured him that ARM-powered chips could handle the convergence of voice, data, music, and video.

The moment when mobile industry changed forever

The book also features a detailed treatment of ARM based chips and Intel’s Atom chips. Moreover, it provides an insider’s view of key players—such as Apple, Google, Nokia and Microsoft—and charts their respective journeys to smartphone riches. A sense of what worked and what didn’t could be highly valuable for managers working in companies that aim to explore opportunities in the smartphone realm.

Smartphone: Mobile Revolution at the Crossroads of Communications, Computing and Consumer Electronics is available in both paperback and e-book formats.