When Martin Cooper, placed the first-ever cellphone call on a clunky, ten-inch, nearly three pound Motorola DynaTAC 8000X handset in 1973, he didn’t mince words. “Joel, I’m calling you from a cellphone ... a personal, portable, handheld cellphone,” he remembers telling a rival engineer, Joel Engel. Cooper knew he was ushering in a communications revolution, but even he could not have foreseen how the device would come to change nearly every facet of modern life. By the late 1990s, cellphone users could make calls, play rudimentary games and send text messages. But it wasn’t until Apple’s iPhone was introduced in 2007 and its app store a year later—that smartphones became the appendages they are today. By replacing not only calculators and maps but also bank tellers, taxi dispatchers and more, they have made it easier to sail through daily life while limiting human interaction, connecting us to vast networks while arguably isolating us—a constant companion a finger tap away.
By Tracy Scott Forson | Illustration by John Kachik
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One of the most remarkable seismic shifts summoned by the smartphone has been with the personal camera. A 2024 report found that more than 90 percent of the 4.7 billion photographs (!!) taken every day are shot with smartphones.
Camera
In Your Hand
The Whole World
GPS technology long predates smartphones, but calling up directions on your phone has become an essential part of every road trip or city venture. Nostalgia may weep for the serendipitous finds you come across when lost, but being able to avoid that five-mile traffic backup is quite nice, too.
Maps
Tonight’s dinner could be a delivery ordered from DoorDash or from a recipe on the New York Times’ Cooking app. The world is literally your oyster; just be sure to snap a pic to post on Instagram.
Food
“Got the time?” used to be a common question, but now everyone carries a clock in their pocket or purse. In the 2010s, smartwatches hit the market and step-trackers such as FitBit turned the watch into a personal trainer.
Timepieces
Cultural critic Derek Thompson recently wrote an essay titled “Everything Is Television,” in which he postulated that culture of all forms (podcasts, movies, art, memes) are turning into what used to arrive via antennas on a box in the family room.
Television
What’s a six-letter word for a blockbuster game with a humble beginning? Try WORDLE. According to the New York Times, millions of players take a stab at guessing each day’s word, and its games were played more than 11.2 billion times in 2025.
Crosswords & Games
Perhaps the most noteworthy example of a Silicon Valley startup “disrupting” an entire industry, ride-sharing apps such as Uber and Lyft hit the roads running in the early 2010s. Uber recorded more than 13.5 billion trips in 2025.
Hailing a Ride
The technology has come a long way since transistor radios and the Walkman. Last year, Spotify boasted more than 700 million listeners to its music, podcast and audiobook offerings. The top artist around the world? Puerto Rico’s Bad Bunny, his fourth time earning that title.
Music
Can a book still be called a page-turner if even it’s not on paper? Even as e-readers continue to be popular, apps also give the daily commuter or beach bum the chance to pore through their favorite reads on their smartphones.
E-Books
In one day, you can hear from the same friend via text, email, Google chat, Instagram DM, Slack, a group chat on WhatsApp and many more methods of communication happening instantaneously. Via a friendly note delivered by the postal service? Hardly ever!
Mail
Even though modern English still uses the term “dial” to call a friend, the rotary phone hasn’t been a regular feature of daily life in more than four decades. Today, many find a video chat is preferable to a phone call.
Telephone
The days of writing a personal check or balancing a checkbook may be waning. A new study reported that only 26% of Gen Zers have ever written a check. Banking apps, and money-transfer apps like Venmo, have made the practice rare and, in many instances, unnecessary.
Banking
Now you definitely don’t need the weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows. Forecasting and tracking technology have gotten to the point where apps can provide rain outlooks pinpointed to your precise location.
Weather
Readers of a certain generation recall using Texas Instruments’ high-tech graphing calculators for all sorts of operations. Now all of that is done easily on a smartphone app.
Calculator
You’re running out of excuses for forgetting your aunt’s birthday. Calendar apps and constant push notifications help you remember important dates and keep you on schedule as you head from one appointment to the next.
Calendar