In the early 2000s, cellphones were bold, personal, and—more often than not—girly. But then the iPhone happened, and we lost what made phones fun along the way.
The next time you’re at a bar, your friend’s house, or minding your business on the bus, glance around you, and count all the cellphones. You’ll tally more than you usually notice—all the tech guys at the bar will be data-scraping Hinge, or the toddlers on the bus will be appraisingboom, phones have transformed from conspicuous, clicky calculators to totally ignorable shadows, sleek black boxes that fade into the background. It’s surprising that we're here now.
Cellphones remained around this intimidating price and heft for the next few years; the popular 1987 NEC 9a would cost around $7,600 today, while the corded 1991 Siemens C5 C-Netz weighed just over five pounds. Things became more perky and portable at the top of the 1990s, when innovations like thecataloged mobile phone ownership in the U.S., 53 percent of adults had a cell.
“Samsung is headquartered in Seoul, which is a fashion capital of the world,” Blackard said. “People really want to show off their own style and individuality in the same way they would with a pair of shoes.”in 2019 and launched the Razr+ in 2023, echoes this idea. “Through all of our partnerships—past, present and future—we tap individuals and brands who are willing to ‘flip the script’ with us,” a Motorola spokesperson said.
Other in-demand smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel share the iPhone’s no-nonsense design, a long road down from the playful variation of 2003. It’s disappointing that cellphones once embraced—and profited from—girlhood, only to exchange femininity for something cold and opposite, impersonal and blank, to chase a trend. When you take Apple’s overwhelminglyRealistically, any useful technology should be gender-blind.
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