In electrical engineering , capacitive sensing (sometimes capacitance sensing ) is a technology, based on capacitive coupling , that can detect and measure anything that is conductive or has a dielectric constant different from air. Many types of sensors use capacitive sensing, including sensors to detect and measure proximity , pressure, position and displacement , force , humidity , fluid level , and acceleration . Human interface devices based on capacitive sensing, such as touchpads , can replace the computer mouse . Digital audio players , mobile phones , and tablet computers will sometimes use capacitive sensing touchscreens as input devices. Capacitive sensors can also replace mechanical buttons.
79-606: The HTC HD Mini is a smartphone running the Windows Mobile operating system with HTC Sense . The phone was designed and manufactured by HTC , and was first released in February 2010. With a screen size of 81.2 mm (3.20 in) and weighing 3.88 ounces (110 grams) with battery, it is a compact version of its larger sibling, the HTC HD2 , although being powered by a lower speed 600 MHz Qualcomm processor and
158-511: A digital signal processor (DSP). Capacitive sensing is commonly used for mobile multi-touch displays, popularized by Apple 's iPhone in 2007. Capacitive sensors are constructed from many different media, such as copper, indium tin oxide (ITO) and printed ink. Copper capacitive sensors can be implemented on standard FR4 PCBs as well as on flexible material. ITO allows the capacitive sensor to be up to 90% transparent (for one layer solutions, such as touch phone screens). Size and spacing of
237-411: A gyroscope , an accelerometer , and more ), and support diverse wireless communication protocols (such as LTE , 5G NR , Wi-Fi , Bluetooth , and satellite navigation ). In the mid-2020s, smartphone manufacturers have begun to integrate satellite messaging connectivity and satellite emergency services into devices for use in remote regions where there is no reliable cellular network . Following
316-446: A square wave ). For an example capacitive sense IC, Texas Instruments 's FDC1004 applies a 25-kHz step waveform to charge up an electrode, and after a defined amount of time, converts the analog voltage representing that charge into a digital value of capacitance using a built-in analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The design of a simple capacitance meter is often based on a relaxation oscillator . The capacitance to be sensed forms
395-692: A " keyboard bar " form factor, like the BlackBerry line, Windows Mobile smartphones, Palm Treos , and some of the Nokia Eseries . A few hid their full physical QWERTY keyboard in a sliding form factor , like the Danger Hiptop line. Some even had only a numeric keypad using T9 text input , like the Nokia Nseries and other models in the Nokia Eseries . Resistive touchscreens with stylus -based interfaces could still be found on
474-515: A "devices and services" company. Despite the growth of Windows Phone and the Lumia range (which accounted for nearly 90% of all Windows Phone devices sold), the platform never had significant market share in the key U.S. market, and Microsoft was unable to maintain Windows Phone's momentum in the years that followed, resulting in dwindling interest from users and app developers. After Balmer
553-431: A 3.5" capacitive touchscreen with twice the common resolution of most smartphone screens at the time , and introduced multi-touch to phones, which allowed gestures such as "pinching" to zoom in or out on photos, maps, and web pages. The iPhone was notable as being the first device of its kind targeted at the mass market to abandon the use of a stylus, keyboard, or keypad typical of contemporary smartphones, instead using
632-673: A 512 MB ROM /384 MB RAM storage combination. Other features include multi-touch display, 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus; internal GPS antenna; 3G broadband connectivity, Wi-Fi and FM radio. As compared to the HD2's WVGA resolution, the HD Mini has HVGA , in tandem with the smaller screen. The camera has no flash and the home screen can not be customized. The HTC HD mini includes capacitive touch for viewing, zooming and resizing websites, Microsoft Office files, PDF documents and pictures. The HD Mini runs Windows Mobile 6.5.3 although it
711-561: A capacitance bridge configuration , similar to a Wheatstone bridge . The capacitance bridge helps to compensate for any variability that may exist in the applied signal. While not specific to capacitive sensing, charge transfer uses a switched capacitor network to accumulate charge onto an integrating capacitor over a series of discrete steps, to produce an accurate sum of all the individual charge contributors. Delta-sigma modulation can also measure capacitance instead of voltage. The primary source of error in capacitance measurements
790-399: A capacitance sensing system requires first picking the type of sensing material (FR4, Flex, ITO, etc.). One also needs to understand the environment the device will operate in, such as the full operating temperature range, what radio frequencies are present and how the user will interact with the interface. There are two types of capacitive sensing systems: In both cases, the difference of
869-469: A capacitive divider (a voltage divider that uses capacitors instead of resistors). This consists of two capacitors in series, one of a known value and the other of an unknown value. An output signal is then taken from across one of the capacitors. The value of the unknown capacitor can be found from the ratio of capacitances, which equals the ratio of the output/input signal amplitudes, as could be measured by an AC voltmeter. More accurate instruments may use
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#1732790787130948-439: A dependence on third-party sources providing applications for multiple platforms. The advantages of a design with software powerful enough to support advanced applications and a large capacitive touchscreen affected the development of another smartphone OS platform, Android , with a more BlackBerry-like prototype device scrapped in favor of a touchscreen device with a slide-out physical keyboard, as Google's engineers thought at
1027-504: A dual five-megapixel rear camera setup for spatial imaging, among the earliest mobile phones with more than one rear camera . The 2012 Samsung Galaxy S3 introduced the ability to capture photos using voice commands . Capacitive sensing A capacitive touchscreen typically consists of a capacitive touch sensor along with at least two complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor ( CMOS ) integrated circuit (IC) chips, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) controller and
1106-457: A few smartphones, like the Palm Treos , which had dropped their handwriting input after a few early models that were available in versions with Graffiti instead of a keyboard. The late 2000s and early 2010s saw a shift in smartphone interfaces away from devices with physical keyboards and keypads to ones with large finger-operated capacitive touchscreens. The first phone of any kind with
1185-399: A human finger, touches the uncoated surface, a capacitor is dynamically formed. Because of the sheet resistance of the surface, each corner is measured to have a different effective capacitance. The sensor's controller can determine the location of the touch indirectly from the change in the capacitance as measured from the four corners of the panel: the larger the change in capacitance,
1264-404: A large capacitive touchscreen as the sole means of interaction, and led to the decline of earlier, keyboard- and keypad-focused platforms. Later, navigation keys such as the home , back , menu , task and search buttons have also been increasingly replaced by nonphysical touch keys, then virtual, simulated on-screen navigation keys, commonly with access combinations such as a long press of
1343-529: A large capacitive touchscreen was the LG Prada , announced by LG in December 2006. This was a fashionable feature phone created in collaboration with Italian luxury designer Prada with a 3" 240 x 400 pixel screen, a 2-Megapixel digital camera with 144p video recording ability, an LED flash , and a miniature mirror for self portraits. In January 2007, Apple Computer introduced the iPhone . It had
1422-464: A large touchscreen for direct finger input as its main means of interaction. The iPhone's operating system was also a shift away from older operating systems (which older phones supported and which were adapted from PDAs and feature phones ) to an operative system powerful enough to not require using a limited, stripped down web browser that can only render pages specially formatted using technologies such as WML , cHTML , or XHTML and instead ran
1501-455: A lesser extent, handheld video game consoles , e-reader devices, pocket calculators , and GPS tracking units . Since the early 2010s, improved hardware and faster wireless communication (due to standards such as LTE and later 5G NR) have bolstered the growth of the smartphone industry . As of 2014, over a billion smartphones are sold globally every year. In 2019 alone, 1.54 billion smartphone units were shipped worldwide. 75.05 percent of
1580-481: A limited amount of cellular Internet access. PDA and mobile phone manufacturers competed in reducing the size of devices. 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 " early adopters " and business users who needed portable connectivity. In March 1996, Hewlett-Packard released
1659-752: A major partnership with Microsoft, under which it would exclusively use Windows Phone on all of its future smartphones, and integrate Microsoft's Bing search engine and Bing Maps (which, as part of the partnership, would also license Nokia Maps data) into all future devices. The announcement led to the abandonment of both Symbian, as well as MeeGo —a Linux-based mobile platform it was co-developing with Intel. Nokia's low-end Lumia 520 saw strong demand and helped Windows Phone gain niche popularity in some markets, overtaking BlackBerry in global market share in 2013. In mid-June 2012, Meizu released its mobile operating system, Flyme OS . Many of these attempts to compete with Android and iPhone were short-lived. Over
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#17327907871301738-481: A portion of the oscillator's RC circuit or LC circuit . The capacitance can be calculated by measuring the charging time required to reach the threshold voltage (of the relaxation oscillator), or equivalently, by measuring the oscillator's frequency. Both of these are proportional to the RC (or LC) time constant of the oscillator circuit. Another measurement technique is to apply a fixed-frequency AC-voltage signal across
1817-403: A preceding absolute position from the present absolute position yields the relative motion of the object or finger during that time. The technologies are elaborated in the following section. In this basic technology, only one side of the insulator is coated with conductive material. A small voltage is applied to this layer, resulting in a uniform electrostatic field. When a conductor , such as
1896-531: A redesigned user interface, support for gestures such as pinch-to-zoom, and a new web browser based on the same WebKit rendering engine used by the iPhone. The following year, RIM released BlackBerry OS 7 and new models in the Bold and Torch ranges, which included a new Bold with a touchscreen alongside its keyboard, and the Torch 9860—the first BlackBerry phone to not include a physical keyboard. In 2013, it replaced
1975-416: A rotary knob ring around the lens and a tripod mount. While screen sizes have increased, manufacturers have attempted to make smartphones thinner at the expense of utility and sturdiness, since a thinner frame is more vulnerable to bending and has less space for components, namely battery capacity. The iPhone and later touchscreen-only Android devices together popularized the slate form factor , based on
2054-423: A simple example of the above equation, if the charging current is constant and the starting voltage V ( t 0 ) {\displaystyle V(t_{0})} is 0 V, then the capacitance is simply the value of that constant current multiplied by the charging time duration ( t 1 − t 0 ) {\displaystyle (t_{1}-t_{0})} and divided by
2133-426: A small amount of water on the screen. Mutual capacitive sensors can provide a two-dimensional image of the changes in the electric field. Using this image, a range of applications have been proposed. Authenticating users, estimating the orientation of fingers touching the screen and differentiating between fingers and palms become possible. While capacitive sensors are used for the touchscreens of most smartphones,
2212-571: A version of Apple's Safari browser that could render full websites not specifically designed for mobile phones. Later Apple shipped a software update that gave the iPhone a built-in on-device App Store allowing direct wireless downloads of third-party software. This kind of centralized App Store and free developer tools quickly became the new main paradigm for all smartphone platforms for software development , distribution , discovery, installation , and payment, in place of expensive developer tools that required official approval to use and
2291-400: Is stray capacitance , which if not guarded against, may fluctuate between roughly 10 pF and 10 nF. The stray capacitance can be held relatively constant by shielding the (high impedance) capacitance signal and then connecting the shield to (a low impedance) ground reference. Also, to minimize the unwanted effects of stray capacitance, it is good practice to locate the sensing electronics as near
2370-681: Is a mobile device that combines the functionality of a traditional mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing , email , and social media , as well as multimedia playback and streaming . Smartphones have built-in cameras , GPS navigation , and support for various communication methods, including voice calls, text messaging , and internet-based messaging apps. Smartphones are distinguished from older-design feature phones by their more advanced hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems , access to
2449-457: Is applied to the rows or columns. Bringing a finger or conductive stylus near the surface of the sensor changes the local electric field which reduces the mutual capacitance. The capacitance change at every individual point on the grid can be measured to accurately determine the touch location by measuring the voltage in the other axis. Mutual capacitance allows multi-touch operation where multiple fingers, palms or styli can be accurately tracked at
HTC HD Mini - Misplaced Pages Continue
2528-407: Is covered up by a custom user interface named Sense . CNET gave the HD Mini an 8.3/10, praising the phone itself but disliking Windows Mobile 6. The Register and SlashGear gave mostly positive reviews but noted that other competitors were better and that Windows Mobile 7 was about to release which could break compatibility. Smartphone A smartphone , often simply called a phone ,
2607-520: Is typically measured indirectly, by using it to control the frequency of an oscillator, or to vary the level of coupling (or attenuation) of an AC signal. Basically the technique works by charging the unknown capacitance with a known current, since rearranging the current–voltage relation for a capacitor , I ( t ) = C d V ( t ) d t , {\displaystyle I(t)=C{\frac {\mathrm {d} V(t)}{\mathrm {d} t}}\,,} allows determining
2686-599: The J-SH04 , a Sharp J-Phone model sold in Japan in November 2000. It could instantly transmit pictures via cell phone telecommunication . By the mid-2000s, higher-end cell phones commonly had integrated digital cameras. In 2003 camera phones outsold stand-alone digital cameras, and in 2006 they outsold film and digital stand-alone cameras. Five billion camera phones were sold in five years, and by 2007 more than half of
2765-1033: The Japanese market , such as mobile payments and shopping, near-field communication (NFC) allowing mobile wallet functionality to replace smart cards for transit fares, loyalty cards, identity cards, event tickets, coupons, money transfer, etc., downloadable content like musical ringtones , games , and comics , and 1seg mobile television . Phones built by Japanese manufacturers used custom firmware , however, and did not yet feature standardized mobile operating systems designed to cater to third-party application development , so their software and ecosystems were akin to very advanced feature phones . As with other feature phones, additional software and services required partnerships and deals with providers. The degree of integration between phones and carriers, unique phone features, non-standardized platforms, and tailoring to Japanese culture made it difficult for Japanese manufacturers to export their phones, especially when demand
2844-589: The Nokia 9000 Communicator , a digital cellular PDA based on the Nokia 2110 with an integrated system based on the PEN/GEOS 3.0 operating system from Geoworks . The two components were attached by a hinge in what became known as a clamshell design , with the display above and a physical QWERTY keyboard below. The PDA provided e-mail ; calendar, address book, calculator and notebook applications; text-based Web browsing; and could send and receive faxes. When closed,
2923-566: The Nokia N8 , Sony Ericsson Satio , and Samsung M8910 Pixon12 feature phone had 12 MP. The main camera of the 2009 Nokia N86 uniquely features a three-level aperture lens. The Altek Leo, a 14-megapixel smartphone with 3x optical zoom lens and 720p HD video camera was released in late 2010. In 2011, the same year the Nintendo 3DS was released, HTC unveiled the Evo 3D , a 3D phone with
3002-555: The OmniGo 700LX , a modified HP 200LX palmtop PC with a Nokia 2110 mobile phone piggybacked onto it and ROM -based software to support it. It had a 640 × 200 resolution CGA compatible four-shade gray-scale LCD screen and could be used to 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 run thousands of existing software titles, including early versions of Windows . In August 1996, Nokia released
3081-564: The Pre 3 and HP TouchPad tablet. As part of a proposed divestment of its consumer business to focus on enterprise software, HP abruptly ended development of future webOS devices in August 2011, and sold the rights to webOS to LG Electronics in 2013, for use as a smart TV platform. Research in Motion introduced the vertical-sliding BlackBerry Torch and BlackBerry OS 6 in 2010, which featured
3160-627: The exponential scaling and miniaturization of MOS transistors down to sub-micron levels ( Moore's law ), the improved lithium-ion battery , faster digital mobile data networks ( Edholm's law ), and more mature software platforms that allowed mobile device ecosystems to develop independently of data providers . In the 2000s, NTT DoCoMo 's i-mode platform, BlackBerry , Nokia 's Symbian platform, and Windows Mobile began to gain market traction, with models often featuring QWERTY keyboards or resistive touchscreen input and emphasizing access to push email and wireless internet . In
3239-479: The installed base of all mobile phones were camera phones. Sales of separate cameras peaked in 2008. Many early smartphones did not have cameras at all, and earlier models that had them had low performance and insufficient image and video quality that could not compete with budget pocket cameras and fulfill user's needs. By the beginning of the 2010s almost all smartphones had an integrated digital camera. The decline in sales of stand-alone cameras accelerated due to
HTC HD Mini - Misplaced Pages Continue
3318-413: The internet , business applications, mobile payments , and multimedia functionality, including music, video, gaming , radio , and television . Smartphones typically contain a number of metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) chips, include various sensors that can be leveraged by pre-installed and third-party software (such as a magnetometer , a proximity sensor , a barometer ,
3397-478: The " Pocket PC " versions of what was later Windows Mobile , and the UIQ interface that was originally designed for pen-based PDAs on Symbian OS devices resulted in some early smartphones having stylus-based interfaces. These allowed for virtual keyboards and handwriting input, thus also allowing easy entry of Asian characters. By the mid-2000s, the majority of smartphones had a physical QWERTY keyboard. Most used
3476-503: The 1990s, or lithium-ion batteries used in modern smartphones. The term "smart phone" (in two words) was not coined until a year after the introduction of the Simon, appearing in print as early as 1995, describing AT&T's PhoneWriter Communicator. The term "smartphone" (as one word) was first used by Ericsson in 1997 to describe a new device concept, the GS88 . Beginning in
3555-870: The capacitance from the instantaneous current divided by the rate of change of voltage across the capacitor: C = I ( t ) d V ( t ) d t . {\displaystyle C={\frac {I(t)}{\frac {\mathrm {d} V(t)}{\mathrm {d} t}}}\,.} That can be integrated over a charging time period from t 0 {\displaystyle t_{0}} to t 1 {\displaystyle t_{1}} to be expressed in integral form as: C = ∫ t 0 t 1 I ( t ) d t V ( t 1 ) − V ( t 0 ) . {\displaystyle C={\frac {\int _{t_{0}}^{t_{1}}I(t)\,\mathrm {d} t}{V(t_{1})-V(t_{0})}}\,.} For
3634-415: The capacitive image is typically not exposed to the application layer. Power supplies with a high level of electronic noise can reduce accuracy. Many stylus designs for resistive touchscreens will not register on capacitive sensors because they are not conductive. Styluses that work on capacitive touchscreens primarily designed for fingers are required to simulate the difference in dielectric offered by
3713-456: The capacitive sensor are both very important to the sensor's performance. In addition to the size of the sensor, and its spacing relative to the ground plane , the type of ground plane used is very important. Since the parasitic capacitance of the sensor is related to the electric field 's (E-field) path to ground, it is important to choose a ground plane that limits the concentration of E-field lines with no conductive object present. Designing
3792-469: The closer the touch is to that corner. With no moving parts, it is moderately durable, but has low resolution, is prone to false signals from parasitic capacitive coupling , and needs calibration during manufacture. Therefore, it is most often used in simple applications such as industrial controls and interactive kiosks . Projected capacitance touch (PCT) technology is a capacitive technology which allows more accurate and flexible operation, by etching
3871-489: The company announced that it would also exit the hardware market to focus more on software and its enterprise middleware, and began to license the BlackBerry brand and its Android distribution to third-party OEMs such as TCL for future devices. In September 2013, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Nokia's mobile device business for $ 7.1 billion, as part of a strategy under CEO Steve Ballmer for Microsoft to be
3950-566: The conductive layer. An X-Y grid is formed either by etching one layer to form a grid pattern of electrodes , or by etching two separate, parallel layers of conductive material with perpendicular lines or tracks to form the grid; comparable to the pixel grid found in many liquid crystal displays (LCD). The greater resolution of PCT allows operation with no direct contact, such that the conducting layers can be coated with further protective insulating layers, and operate even under screen protectors, or behind weather and vandal-proof glass. Because
4029-427: The course of the decade, the two platforms became a clear duopoly in smartphone sales and market share, with BlackBerry, Windows Phone, and other operating systems eventually stagnating to little or no measurable market share. In 2015, BlackBerry began to pivot away from its in-house mobile platforms in favor of producing Android devices, focusing on a security-enhanced distribution of the software. The following year,
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#17327907871304108-462: The device could be used as a digital cellular telephone. In June 1999 Qualcomm released the "pdQ Smartphone", a CDMA digital PCS smartphone with an integrated Palm PDA and Internet connectivity. Subsequent landmark devices included: In 1999, Japanese wireless provider NTT DoCoMo launched i-mode , a new mobile internet platform which provided data transmission speeds up to 9.6 kilobits per second, and access web services available through
4187-478: The early 1990s, IBM engineer Frank Canova realised that chip-and-wireless technology was becoming small enough to use in handheld devices . The first commercially available device that could be properly referred to as a "smartphone" began as a prototype called "Angler" developed by Canova in 1992 while at IBM and demonstrated in November of that year at the COMDEX computer industry trade show. A refined version
4266-531: The final voltage V ( t 1 ) . {\displaystyle V(t_{1})\,.} Either this charging time or voltage can be a predetermined constant. For instance, if measuring after a constant amount of time, then the capacitance can be determined using only the final voltage. Alternatively if using a fixed threshold voltage, then instead only need to measure the charging time duration to reach that voltage threshold. This step response measurement can be continually repeated (e.g. by using
4345-466: The iPhone; Palm unveiled a new platform known as webOS for its Palm Pre in late-2009 to replace Palm OS , which featured a focus on a task-based "card" metaphor and seamless synchronization and integration between various online services (as opposed to the then-conventional concept of a smartphone needing a PC to serve as a "canonical, authoritative repository" for user data). HP acquired Palm in 2010 and released several other webOS devices, including
4424-526: The increasing use of smartphones with rapidly improving camera technology for casual photography, easier image manipulation , and abilities to directly share photos through the use of apps and web-based services. By 2011, cell phones with integrated cameras were selling hundreds of millions per year. In 2015, digital camera sales were 35.395 million units or only less than a third of digital camera sales numbers at their peak and also slightly less than film camera sold number at their peak. Contributing to
4503-533: The legacy BlackBerry OS with a revamped, QNX -based platform known as BlackBerry 10 , with the all-touch BlackBerry Z10 and keyboard-equipped Q10 as launch devices. In 2010, Microsoft unveiled a replacement for Windows Mobile known as Windows Phone , featuring a new touchscreen-centric user interface built around flat design and typography, a home screen with "live tiles" containing feeds of updates from apps, as well as integrated Microsoft Office apps. In February 2011, Nokia announced that it had entered into
4582-545: The main image with a macro focus shot . In 2007 the Nokia N95 was notable as a smartphone that had a 5.0 Megapixel (MP) camera, when most others had cameras with around 3 MP or less than 2 MP. Some specialized feature phones like the LG Viewty , Samsung SGH-G800 , and Sony Ericsson K850i , all released later that year, also had 5.0 MP cameras. By 2010 5.0 MP cameras were common; a few smartphones had 8.0 MP cameras and
4661-526: The mid-to-late 1990s, many people who had mobile phones carried a separate 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 early mobile operating systems . Most of the "smartphones" in this era were hybrid devices that combined these existing familiar PDA OSes with basic phone hardware. The results were devices that were bulkier than either dedicated mobile phones or PDAs, but allowed
4740-521: The panel surface can interfere with the performance. Such conductive smudges come mostly from sticky or sweaty finger tips, especially in high humidity environments. Collected dust, which adheres to the screen because of moisture from fingertips can also be a problem. There are two types of PCT: self capacitance, and mutual capacitance. Mutual capacitive sensors have a capacitor at each intersection of each row and each column. A 12-by-16 array, for example, would have 192 independent capacitors. A voltage
4819-671: The platform such as online shopping. NTT DoCoMo's i-mode used cHTML , a language which restricted some aspects of traditional HTML in favor of increasing data speed for the devices. Limited functionality, small screens and limited bandwidth allowed for phones to use the slower data speeds available. The rise of i-mode helped NTT DoCoMo accumulate an estimated 40 million subscribers by the end of 2001, and ranked first in market capitalization in Japan and second globally. Japanese cell phones increasingly diverged from global standards and trends to offer other forms of advanced services and smartphone-like functionality that were specifically tailored to
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#17327907871304898-412: The purpose. One can even make a capacitive stylus by wrapping conductive material, such as anti-static conductive film, around a standard stylus or by rolling the film into a tube. Until recently, capacitive touchscreens were more expensive to manufacture than resistive touchscreens . Not any more (see touchscreen#Construction ). Some cannot be used with gloves and can fail to sense correctly with even
4977-526: The rest of the world. Phones that made effective use of any significant data connectivity were still rare outside Japan until the introduction of the Danger Hiptop in 2002, which saw moderate success among U.S. consumers as the T-Mobile Sidekick. Later, in the mid-2000s, business users in the U.S. started to adopt devices based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile , and then BlackBerry smartphones from Research In Motion . American users popularized
5056-412: The rise in popularity of smartphones being used over dedicated cameras for photography, smaller pocket cameras have difficulty producing bokeh in images, but nowadays, some smartphones have dual-lens cameras that reproduce the bokeh effect easily, and can even rearrange the level of bokeh after shooting. This works by capturing multiple images with different focus settings, then combining the background of
5135-660: The rising popularity of the iPhone in the late 2000s, the majority of smartphones have featured thin, slate-like form factors with large, capacitive touch screens with support for multi-touch gestures rather than physical keyboards. Most modern smartphones have the ability for users to download or purchase additional applications from a centralized app store . They often have support for cloud storage and cloud synchronization, and virtual assistants . Smartphones have largely replaced personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, handheld/palm-sized PCs , portable media players (PMP), point-and-shoot cameras , camcorders , and, to
5214-444: The same time. Self-capacitance sensors can have the same X-Y grid as mutual capacitance sensors, but the columns and rows operate independently. With self-capacitance, current senses the capacitive load of a finger on each column or row. This produces a stronger signal than mutual capacitance sensing, but it is unable to resolve accurately more than one finger, which results in "ghosting", or misplaced location sensing. Capacitance
5293-441: The sensor electrodes as possible. Capacitive touchscreens are more responsive than resistive touchscreens (which react to any object since no capacitance is needed), but less accurate. However, projective capacitance improves a touchscreen's accuracy as it forms a triangulated grid around the point of touch. A standard stylus cannot be used for capacitive sensing, but special capacitive styluses, which are conductive, exist for
5372-562: The standalone handset can when necessary be inserted into a tablet -sized screen unit with integrated supportive battery and used as such. In 2013 and 2014, Samsung experimented with the hybrid combination of compact camera and smartphone, releasing the Galaxy S4 Zoom and K Zoom , each equipped with integrated 10× optical zoom lens and manual parameter settings (including manual exposure and focus) years before these were widely adapted among smartphones. The S4 Zoom additionally has
5451-542: The task key to simulate a short menu key press, as with home button to search. More recent "bezel-less" types have their screen surface space extended to the unit's front bottom to compensate for the display area lost for simulating the navigation keys. While virtual keys offer more potential customizability, their location may be inconsistent among systems depending on screen rotation and software used. Multiple vendors attempted to update or replace their existing smartphone platforms and devices to better-compete with Android and
5530-467: The term "CrackBerry" in 2006 due to the BlackBerry's addictive nature. In the U.S., the high cost of data plans and relative rarity of devices with Wi-Fi capabilities that could avoid cellular data network usage kept adoption of smartphones mainly to business professionals and " early adopters ." Outside the U.S. and Japan, Nokia was seeing success with its smartphones based on Symbian , originally developed by Psion for their personal organisers, and it
5609-489: The time that a touchscreen could not completely replace a physical keyboard and buttons. Android is based around a modified Linux kernel, again providing more power than mobile operating systems adapted from PDAs and feature phones. The first Android device, the horizontal-sliding HTC Dream , was released in September 2008. In 2012, Asus started experimenting with a convertible docking system named PadFone , where
5688-417: The top layer of a PCT is glass, PCT is a more robust solution versus resistive touch technology. Depending on the implementation, an active or passive stylus can be used instead of or in addition to a finger. This is common with point of sale devices that require signature capture. Gloved fingers may not be sensed, depending on the implementation and gain settings. Conductive smudges and similar interference on
5767-415: The world population were smartphone users as of 2020. Early smartphones were marketed primarily towards the enterprise market, attempting to bridge the functionality of standalone PDA devices with support for cellular telephony , but were limited by their bulky form, short battery life , slow analog cellular networks, and the immaturity of wireless data services. These issues were eventually resolved with
5846-401: Was manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric , which integrated features with its own cellular radio technologies. It featured a liquid-crystal display (LCD) and PC Card support. The Simon was commercially unsuccessful, particularly due to its bulky form factor and limited battery life , using NiCad batteries rather than the nickel–metal hydride batteries commonly used in mobile phones in
5925-435: Was marketed to consumers in 1994 by BellSouth under the name Simon Personal Communicator . In addition to placing and receiving cellular calls , the touchscreen-equipped Simon could send and receive faxes and emails . It included 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 IBM Simon
6004-541: Was so high in Japan that the companies did not feel the need to look elsewhere for additional profits. The rise of 3G technology in other markets and non-Japanese phones with powerful standardized smartphone operating systems , app stores , and advanced wireless network capabilities allowed non-Japanese phone manufacturers to finally break in to the Japanese market, gradually adopting Japanese phone features like emojis , mobile payments, NFC, etc. and spreading them to
6083-767: Was succeeded by Satya Nadella (who has placed a larger focus on software and cloud computing) as CEO of Microsoft, it took a $ 7.6 billion write-off on the Nokia assets in July 2015, and laid off nearly the entire Microsoft Mobile unit in May 2016. Prior to the completion of the sale to Microsoft, Nokia released a series of Android-derived smartphones for emerging markets known as Nokia X , which combined an Android-based platform with elements of Windows Phone and Nokia's feature phone platform Asha , using Microsoft and Nokia services rather than Google. The first commercial camera phone
6162-482: Was the Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210 , released in Japan in May 1999. It was called a "mobile videophone" at the time, and had a 110,000- pixel front-facing camera . It could send up to two images per second over Japan's Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) cellular network , and store up to 20 JPEG digital images , which could be sent over e-mail . The first mass-market camera phone was
6241-655: Was the most popular smartphone OS in Europe during the middle to late 2000s. Initially, Nokia's Symbian smartphones were focused on business with the Eseries , similar to Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices at the time. From 2002 onwards, Nokia started producing consumer-focused smartphones, popularized by the entertainment-focused Nseries . Until 2010, Symbian was the world's most widely used smartphone operating system. The touchscreen personal digital assistant (PDA)–derived nature of adapted operating systems like Palm OS ,
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