Smartphone Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Trivia quiz questions with answers about smartphones.

Smartphone Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

What are smartphones?
A: Smartphones are a class of multi-purpose mobile computing device.

They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger what?
A: Hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems.

Smartphones typically include various sensors that can be leveraged by their software, such as what?
A: Magnetometers, proximity sensors, barometers, gyroscopes, accelerometers and more.

Early smartphones were marketed primarily towards the enterprise market, attempting to bridge the functionality of standalone personal digital assistant (PDA) devices with support for what?
A: Cellular telephony.

They were limited by what?
A: Their battery life, bulky form factors, and the immaturity of wireless data services.

In the 2000's, BlackBerry, Nokia's Symbian platform, and Windows Phone began to gain market traction, with models often featuring what?
A: QWERTY keyboards or resistive touchscreen input, and emphasizing access to push email and wireless internet.

Since the 2007 unveiling of the iPhone, the majority of smartphones have featured what?
A: Thin, slate-like form factors, with large, capacitive screens.

They have support for what?
A: Multi-touch gestures rather than physical keyboards.

They also offer the ability for users to download or purchase what?
A: Additional applications from a centralized store, and use cloud storage and synchronization, virtual assistants, as well as mobile payment services.

Improving hardware and faster wireless standards (such as LTE) have bolstered what?
A: The growth of the smartphone industry.

In the third quarter of 2012, how many smartphones were in use worldwide?
A: One billion.

When did Global smartphone sales surpass the sales figures for feature phones?
A: In early 2013.

The first commercially available device that could be properly referred to as a "smartphone" began as a prototype called "Angler" developed by whom?
A: Frank Canova in 1992 while at IBM.

A refined version was marketed to consumers in 1994 by whom?
A: BellSouth under the name Simon Personal Communicator.

In addition to placing and receiving cellular calls, the touchscreen-equipped Simon could do what?
A: Send and receive faxes and emails.

What did it include?
A: 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 when?
A: A year after the introduction of the Simon, appearing in print as early as 1995, describing AT&T's PhoneWriter Communicator

The first integration of data signals with telephony was conceptualized by whom?
A: Nikola Tesla in 1909.

It was pioneered by Theodore Paraskevakos beginning in what year?
A: 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 what?
A: A transmitter and receiver that provided additional ways to communicate with remote equipment.

This formed the original basis for what is now known as what?
A: Caller ID.

Where was the first caller ID equipment installed?
A: 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 whom?
A: Paraskevakos.

In the mid-late 1990s, many people who had mobile phones carried a separate what?
A: Dedicated PDA device, running early versions of operating systems such as Palm OS, Newton OS, Symbian or Windows CE/Pocket PC.

These operating systems would later evolve into what?
A: Early mobile operating systems.

Most of the "smartphones" in this era were hybrid devices that combined these existing familiar PDA OSes with what?
A: Basic phone hardware.

The results were devices that were bulkier than either dedicated mobile phones or PDAs, but allowed what?
A: A limited amount of cellular Internet access.

The trend at the time, however, that manufacturers competed on in both mobile phones and PDAs was to make devices what?
A: Smaller and slimmer.

The bulk of these smartphones combined with their high cost and expensive data plans, plus other drawbacks such as expansion limitations and decreased battery life compared to separate standalone devices, generally limited their popularity to whom?
A: Early adopters" and business users who needed portable connectivity.

In March 1996, Hewlett-Packard released the OmniGo 700LX, a modified HP 200LX palmtop PC with what piggybacked onto it and ROM-based software to support it?
A: Nokia 2110 mobile phone.

It had a 640×200 resolution CGA compatible four-shade gray-scale LCD screen and could be used to do what?
A: Place and receive calls, and to create and receive text messages, emails and faxes.

It was also 100% DOS 5.0 compatible, allowing it to do what?
A: Run thousands of existing software titles, including early versions of Windows.

In August 1996, Nokia released the Nokia 9000 Communicator, a digital cellular PDA based on the Nokia 2110 with an integrated system based on what?
A: The PEN/GEOS 3.0 operating system from Geoworks.

The two components were attached by a hinge in what became known as a what?
A: A clamshell design, with the display above and a physical QWERTY keyboard below.

What did the PDA provide?
A: E-mail; calendar, address book, calculator and notebook applications; text-based Web browsing; and could send and receive faxes.

When closed, the device could be used as a what?
A: A digital cellular telephone.

In June 1999 Qualcomm released the "pdQ Smartphone", a CDMA digital PCS smartphone with what?
A: An integrated Palm PDA and Internet connectivity.

Handspring's Treo 180 (2002), was the first smartphone that fully integrated what?
A: The Palm OS on a GSM mobile phone having telephony, SMS messaging and Internet access built in to the OS.

The 180 model had a thumb-type keyboard and the 180g version had what?
A: A Graffiti handwriting recognition area, instead.

Smartphones were still rare outside Japan until the introduction of the what?
A: The Danger Hiptop in 2002, which saw moderate success among U.S. consumers.

Later, in the mid-2000s, business users in the U.S. started to adopt devices based on what?
A: Microsoft's Windows Mobile, and then BlackBerry smartphones from Research In Motion.

American users popularized what term in 2006 due to the BlackBerry's addictive nature?
A: The "CrackBerry".

Outside the U.S. and Japan, Nokia was seeing success with its smartphones based on Symbian, originally developed by Psion for their what?
A: Personal organizers, and it was the most popular smartphone OS in Europe during the middle to late 2000s.

Initially, Nokia's Symbian smartphones were focused on what?
A: Business with the Eseries, similar to Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices at the time.

From 2006 onwards, Nokia started producing consumer-focused smartphones, popularized by what?
A: The entertainment-focused Nseries.

Until 2010, what was the worlds most widely used smartphone operating system?
A: Symbian.

The original Apple iPhones introduction contributed to the steady rise of smartphones that feature what?
A: Large touchscreen interfaces without physical keypads

In the 2000s, it was common for smartphones to have a physical what?
A: T9 numeric keypad or QWERTY keyboard in either a candybar or sliding form factor.

Some smartphones had resistive touchscreens, which allowed for what?
A: Virtual keyboards and handwriting input with a stylus or finger.

In January 2007, Apple Computer unveiled what?
A: The iPhone, the company's first smartphone.

The iPhone was designed around a what?
A: A large capacitive touchscreen.

The phone supported the use of multi-touch gestures for what?
A: Interactions such as "pinching" to zoom in and out on photos and web pages.

Although facing criticism for not supporting the latest 3G wireless network standards, or the installation of third-party software on-launch, the iPhone was praised for its what?
A: Hardware and software design, and its June 2007 release was met with heavy demand, with customers waiting in lines outside Apple Store locations to be among the first to purchase it.

The following year, Apple unveiled the what?
A: The iPhone 3G, and a service known as App Store, which would allow users to download and purchase new apps for their iPhone.

When was the first Android device, the HTC Dream released?
A: In September 2008.