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A STUDY OF THE GROWTH AND EVOLUTION OF PERSONAL DEVICES THROUGHOUT THE PC AGE

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Engineering

Ryan Abbott ST20074068 Supervisor: Paul Angel

Department of & Information Systems Cardiff School of Management Cardiff Metropolitan University April 2017 Declaration

I hereby declare that this dissertation entitled A Study of the Growth and Evolution of Devices Throughout the PC Age is entirely my own work, and it has never been submitted nor is it currently being submitted for any other degree.

Candidate: Ryan Abbott

Signature:

Date: 14/04/2017

Supervisor: Paul Angel

Signature:

Date:

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Table of Contents

Declaration ...... 2 List of Figures ...... 4 1. ABSTRACT ...... 5 2. INTRODUCTION ...... 6 3. METHODOLOGY...... 8 4. LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 9 4.1 PCs & ...... 9 4.2 Mobile Phones & Tablets ...... 10 4.3 Other Relevant IT Developments ...... 11 5. THE HISTORY OF PERSONAL DEVICES & RELATED IT DEVELOPMENTS ...... 13 5.1 PCs & Laptops ...... 13 5.2 Mobile Phones & Tablets ...... 20 5.3 Other Relevant IT Developments ...... 29 5.3.1 Operating Systems ...... 30 5.3.2 ...... 31 5.3.3 / ...... 32 5.3.4 Broadband & Wi-Fi ...... 33 5.3.5 ...... 34 5.3.6 Social ...... 34 6. A CAUSAL ANALYSIS OF DEVICE GROWTH AND EVOLUTION ...... 36 6.1 Era 1975-1982 ...... 36 6.2 Packaged Products 1983-1988 ...... 36 6.3 Mobiles arrive; PCs dip 1989-1991 ...... 37 6.4 Internet Era begins 1992-2000 ...... 37 6.5 & Data connectivity 2001-2006 ...... 37 6.6 & Tablets rule 2007-2016 ...... 38 6.7 Summary ...... 38 7. THE PERSONAL DEVICE MARKET TODAY ...... 40 8. CONCLUSION ...... 43 Bibliography ...... 44 Appendices ...... 47

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List of Figures

Table 1 Report Structure ...... 7

Figure 1 The Computer ...... 14 Figure 2 The Apple II ...... 15 Figure 3 PC Sales 1975-80 ...... 16 Figure 4 IBM PC ...... 17 Figure 5 PC Sales 1980-84 ...... 18 Figure 6 Apple ...... 19 Figure 7 PC Sales 1984-1990 ...... 19 Figure 8 PC Sales 1990-2001 ...... 20 Figure 9 A Transportable ...... 21 Figure 10 International 3200 – First GSM Handportable ...... 22 Figure 11 2110i (Left) & Nokia 6110 (Right) ...... 23 Figure 12 Nokia 1100 – Worlds Top-Selling Phone ...... 23 Figure 13 Ericsson T68i – With Camera Attachment ...... 24 Figure 14 BlackBerry Curve (Left) & BlackBerry Bold (Right) ...... 25 Figure 15 Original Apple iPhone ...... 26 Figure 16 Galaxy S4 ...... 27 Figure 17 MessagePad ...... 28 Figure 18 Original Apple iPad ...... 29

Chart 1 Number of Devices per Respondent ...... 40 Chart 2 Device Usage ...... 41 Chart 3 Worldwide Device Sales ...... 41 Chart 4 Most Commonly Used Device ...... 42 Chart 5 Least Commonly Used Device ...... 42 Chart 6 Number of Devices per Respondent ...... 56 Chart 7 Daily Activities on Smartphones and Tablets...... 57 Chart 8 Device Usage ...... 58 Chart 9 Worldwide Device Sales ...... 59 Chart 10 Most Commonly Used Device ...... 60 Chart 11 Least Commonly Used Device ...... 60

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1. ABSTRACT

Both of my parents have worked in the computer industry most of their lives so I probably have them to thank for my interest in . I have always been lucky enough to have had the benefit of numerous computerised devices and functions – for me the Internet has always been there, as have mobile communications – and yet I knew nothing about how they came about.

This study aims to address this by looking the development and evolution of a range of devices which we are all now very familiar with. As I gathered available literature on this subject I became aware that most of these focused on a single device or aspect of computing and made only casual references to outside factors which influenced their development. As a result, a major objective of this study was to bring together the progression of specific device groups and what I have called “Other Relevant IT Developments” to form a more complete picture of what influenced what.

The main body of this study is presented in 3 chapters. Chapter 5 provides a historical narrative of my two main device groupings – PCs & Laptops and Mobile Phones & Tablets – along with a section on Other IT Developments. Chapter 6 consists of an analysis of the facts presented in Chapter 5, whereas Chapter 7 summarises the current use of devices using secondary and my own primary research data.

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2. INTRODUCTION

In my bedroom, I have a Windows PC, an Apple MacBook and an iPhone. In the next bedroom, which is used as an office by my Dad, there is a Windows desktop PC, and . We also have an iPad which we , along with several other devices which are not included in my study. All devices are connected to the Internet using our home Wi-Fi network and router via our Virgin Media broadband service. We all use a range of and cloud services to interact with family, friends and colleagues using our devices and associated communications technologies. How did this all come about? This is central to the study I have undertaken.

I have always been interested in computers since I had my first computerised toy when I could hardly walk. In the final year of my software engineering degree, I am naturally more interested in software than hardware and other information technologies, but when looking for a dissertation topic it struck me that we all use a range of devices and I decided to research their history. In doing this I discovered two things – firstly, most books and articles focused on a single aspect of computer history and secondly, there was little comparison of the simultaneous developments in different parts of the computer world.

My dissertation has tried to address this weakness by studying personal computing devices together with Other Relevant IT Developments. The devices I have considered are:

- Personal Computers (PCs) - Laptops - Mobile Phones - Tablets

I have combined these into two main groupings – PCs & Laptops and Mobile Phones & Tablets. Included in Other Relevant IT Developments are:

- Operating Systems - Software Applications - Internet/World Wide Web - Broadband & Wi-Fi - Cloud Computing - Social Media

The two groupings of devices plus the grouping of other relevant IT devices make up three sections of study. In addition, I have taken two approaches to these three sections: the first is an historical narrative and the second is a causal analysis.

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This can be represented schematically as follows:

Table 1 Report Structure

SECTIONS  DEVICES OTHER RELEVANT IT APPROACHES  DEVELOPMENTS

PCS & LAPTOPS MOBILE PHONES & OPERATING SYSTEMS HISTORICAL TABLETS APPLICATION SOFTWARE NARRATIVE INTERNET/WORLD WIDE WEB BROADBAND & WI-FI Chapter 5 CLOUD COMPUTING SOCIAL MEDIA

MICROPROCESSOR ERA 1975-1982 CAUSAL PACKAGED PRODUCTS 1983-1988 ANALYSIS MOBILES ARRIVE; PCs DIP 1989-1991 INTERNET ERA BEGINS 1992 -2000 Chapter 6 MOBILE COMPUTING & DATA CONNECTIVITY 2001-2006 SMART PHONES & TABLETS RULE 2007-2016

In Chapter 5, I consider these three sections separately in order to present a clear, chronological narrative of the main developments in each area. Despite this, some references are made to simultaneous developments in other sections, to underline the interrelationships across the whole of computing – something which is missing from most of the established literature.

It is these interrelationships that are the focus of Chapter 6 in an attempt to highlight the causes & effects of related developments. This analysis combines the three sections of study of Chapter 5 and slices them by date range to provide a sequence of device evolution across the timeframe chosen.

Chapter 7 presents a short summary of current device usage which is covered in detail in Appendix 3.

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3. METHODOLOGY

When conducting my research, I managed to find a large number of statistical articles about the uses of personal devices as well as some sales figures for each device. The majority of these articles are dated back to 2016, however some go back further. This led me to about comparing the figures from these articles to some figures I could gather myself, looking at the difference between previous years and now.

I decided to produce a questionnaire which would generate some simple quantitative data on ownership figures of each device, their main uses and finally the most and least used device. A blank version of my questionnaire is shown as Appendix 4.

To produce my questionnaire, I used a named eSurvey Creator. This was due to the simplicity of distributing the questionnaire to the participants, as I could simply send the URL via or social media, rather than having to have a hard copy of the questionnaire to physically hand out. The website also automatically turns the data into tables and charts exportable to Excel, which will come in extremely handy when analysing my data in Chapter 7 and Appendix 3.

In terms of participants, I will be distributing the URL to my Dad via email, for him to send to his colleagues at Crimson Consultants. I will also be asking friends to complete the questionnaire via social media as well as family members.

I am hoping to gain at least 50 responses to the questionnaire. This will give me a good number to avoid any biased outcomes or anomalies. I would also expect to have some quite varied results due to the age groups of the participants. I would expect my Dad’s colleagues to have perhaps less overall devices as they will be older than my friends, who are likely to have a larger number of devices. I would also expect age to be a factor when looking at the main uses of each device, as the older generation will have different interests. These factors should however, give me a good mixture of results to compare to the research I have carried out.

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4. LITERATURE REVIEW

As mentioned in the introduction, it was my review of available literature that finally gave me the emphasis of my dissertation. I had already decided that I would investigate the history of personal computing device growth and evolution within what I have termed the “PC era” and that this study should also consider other relevant IT developments which had an impact on device development. It was only on closer investigation of the literature I was able to find, that I discovered the lack of cross-referencing across these associated aspects of computing. This made it very difficult to picture what was happening simultaneously in the two main device groups plus other IT developments and appreciate what was affecting what.

In an effort to understand this I put together my own timeline which is presented in Appendix 1. For each year in the timeline this shows what was happening simultaneously across the two device groupings of PCs & Laptops and Mobile Phones & Tablets plus the range of other relevant IT developments. This makes it much clearer to understand what was happening across these three areas at any point in time. This is what I felt was missing from the literature that was available to me.

This literature review is structured in with these three groupings.

4.1 PCs & Laptops

The two main books that have provided me with the understanding in the area of desktop PCs and laptops are When Computing Got Personal: A history of the by Matt Nicholson and Computing: A Concise History by Paul Ceruzzi. Both books have been influential in growing my understanding of the history of the PC and the laptop, as well as briefly covering related IT Developments with references to software, the ARPANET, the World Wide Web and aspects of social media.

Nicholson emphasises the personal aspect of computing, which is very much the focus of my study and his book is a good chronology of key events in this story. His introduction states “There are thousands of stories relating to the development of the personal computer that could be told. I have chosen to include those that tell us something important about the way the industry developed” (Nicholson, 2014, p.2). He also makes a point of linking hardware and software developments together, arguing that each of these drove breakthroughs in the other at critical points in their history. His timeline includes key events across many aspects of personal computing evolution and was useful in helping me construct my own, although by not categorising the events in any way it does not easily help the analysis of what contributed to what.

Ceruzzi takes a simpler approach, mainly focusing on a very one-dimensional . However, like Nicholson, Ceruzzi has similar sections on the and

9 the developments at PARC. Ceruzzi focuses slightly more on some of the other developments like the World Wide Web and in later chapters, social media and Google. He also introduces the theme of convergence, stating how devices have evolved to become multi-functional. The most recent example of this is found in the smartphone, a merging of many technologies: , , , phonograph, camera, teletype, computer and a few more (Ceruzzi, 2012, p.xi).

Nicholson’s narrative arguably includes a double meaning of the word ‘personal’ as he covers the persons involved in the development of the PC as well as how computers became a personal device. In doing so, he tells the stories of those who didn’t make it, as well as those who did. Although this was useful in identifying the roles played by some of the key people I am familiar with, e.g. , , etc. this is not something that is important to my study.

Ceruzzi focuses on providing a chronological view of the history of computing. However, as mentioned above, I believe that the book is very one-dimensional and does not provide any real relationship between events, something that Nicholson is better at. The first half of the book is also too historical to be of relevance to my study.

The bibliography includes a number of online sources that were helpful in providing me with some understanding of the PC and laptop history. On the plus side, these were shorter and more focused and thus easier to follow, although they suffered from being even more one- dimensional than the books. In addition to these articles I have also used a number of statistical online references, mainly from Gartner, Inc. which provide the raw material for market size analyses presented throughout this study.

4.2 Mobile Phones & Tablets

When looking at the , the book 30 Years of Mobile Phones in the UK by Nigel Linge and Andy Sutton provided me with a great understanding of three different aspects: mobile manufacturers themselves, the mobile service providers and also the advancement in technology (, 4G etc.) which drove the two previous factors to be what they are today.

“In the thirty years that have elapsed since 1985, the UK has undergone a revolution that has seen the evolve from being a luxury item to an essential part of modern-day living and witnessed a growth in ownership that means there are now considerably more mobiles in the country than people” (Sutton and Linge, 2015, p.5). Although being a relatively short and to the point style of book, Sutton and Linge confirm this assertion using a lot of purposeful information within the book. They manage to maintain a comprehensible link between the three aspects mentioned above, which in turn makes the book very easy to follow. Another bonus is the chronology used, as well as the constant reminder of the pricing and how this fell, thereby creating a mass consumer market.

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Although the book does briefly mention the events taking place in other locations around the world (primarily Europe and the US), the main limitation of the book is its focus on the UK. The only other drawback from my perspective is, as the title would suggest, its lack of content on the tablet, as this is the other device I am including in this grouping.

On the subject of tablets, I have decided to use the online articles shown in the bibliography as my main source of information. This is due to how recent the commercial availability of the tablet has been, resulting in a lack of published literature on this topic alone and little reference to tablets in related literature.

While being short and easy to read, the articles are naturally one-dimensional and so I have only included a timeline style , which helped me trace tablets back to their earlier roots and another sales figure report by Gartner, Inc. to help me decipher tablet sales over recent years.

4.3 Other Relevant IT Developments

Wi-Fi and the Bad Boys of Radio by Alex Hills was the main source of literature I used to strengthen my view on the history of Wi-Fi.

The book was very useful in informing me of how radio communication formed the foundation of today’s Wi-Fi networks and Hills keeps the reader informed of why he set out to create the first Wi-Fi network by linking the current positions of other developments and devices in their respective timelines. He states: “…the combination of mobile computers and high-speed networks could create a new world of untethered, mobile computing” (Hills, 2011, p.59). These links keep the book away from being as one-dimensional as others previously mentioned.

Contrary to this, Hills writes the book as a story of his life, as opposed to writing a narrative of the history of Wi-Fi. While this approach is different to the other literature I have talked about, it’s actually a drawback of the book in my opinion, as it pads the book out with a lot of unnecessary reading.

I purchased The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media by Jose van Dijck to provide me with some material on the relevance of social media in the evolutionary use of personal devices. The book focused mainly on the social impact of social media on its users and on the commercialisation of social media by its owners and provided examples across five systems – , Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia. This has provided a number of valuable quotes which I have used throughout my study to show the massive impact that social media has had on device usage across the main social networking systems.

Cloud Computing by Nayan Ruparelia is a book that I purchased to help gain some background knowledge on the Cloud and look at how its development has affected device usage.

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However, both Cloud Computing and The Culture of Connectivity suffer from being one- dimensional and not linking the developments to device usage, which of course is the main drawback for my study. They are also vastly detailed which made it difficult to extract the information that was useful out of them.

Included in the bibliography are the online articles that I have used. There are some short but very useful articles on the history of broadband, Wi-Fi and the Internet which have been helpful in providing me with knowledge in the areas where I have not picked up published literature. There are also several timeline which, as previously mentioned, helped in producing my own timeline shown as Appendix 1.

Finishing up, the main theme throughout all the literature I have gathered is the one- dimensional nature of each book/article. This is the main purpose of the causal analysis that I will be conducting in chapter 6. For me, this is what’s missing from the literature within the area of my study.

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5. THE HISTORY OF PERSONAL DEVICES & RELATED IT DEVELOPMENTS

This chapter describes the history of personal devices and related IT developments and is presented in three sections, two covering the separate device groups I have identified and one covering the range of related IT developments. It may also be useful to make reference to the Timeline presented in Appendix 1 when reading this chapter. The material in this chapter is presented to familiarise the reader with the “what & when” and is used as the basis of the “how & why” analysis in Chapter 6.

5.1 PCs & Laptops

“In 1972, , a scientist at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), presented a paper at a conference in Boston with the title ‘A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages’. In it he proposed a ‘personal, portable information manipulator’ that could be used by both children and adults, which he called a . The paper was unusual in that it opened with a short story which has two nine-year-olds … sitting on the grass in a park near their home with Dynabooks on their laps, playing ‘Spacewar’ across some sort of ” (Nicholson, 2014, p.3). This isn’t futuristic today, but when you consider this was before the invention of the personal computer, cellular communication networks, Wi-Fi and broadband it was pretty visionary and provides a glimpse of the end result of this story.

Before I started researching this study I never realised that computers have not always been personal devices. In 1955 there were only 250 computers in the world and these were large, expensive mainframe computers. End users had no “interaction” with the computer as they prepared their programs and data on punched cards and these were loaded by computer operators. The mainframe processed these as single, isolated tasks with results normally produced as reports, sometimes days later. The terms “non-interactive” and “batch processing” accurately describe how users interfaced with these devices – not very personal in any sense of the word.

This didn’t change even when smaller, less expensive began to emerge in the 60’s based on more integrated electronic circuits that were starting to become available. Companies like DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), DG () and TI () were responsible for the computer population growing with many more businesses and universities buying them, but the method of operation remained the same. The concept of timesharing was developed to allow many users to interact directly with the computer by sharing the computer’s processing power between them, but this simply resulted in slower response times which largely defeated the object. It is no wonder that the idea of having your own computer to work on was attractive to the rising number of computer-educated graduates that were coming out of the universities.

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What Kay described back in 1972 foresaw wireless networks, the World Wide Web and even , and has only recently become a reality with the likes of the modern PC or tablet. However, as Kay emphasised in his paper, the full benefits of the Dynabook could only be realised if it was cheap enough for ordinary people to own (Nicholson, 2014, p.10). This is largely what the years from 1975-1982 were trying to achieve.

When created the first microprocessor in 1971, the main purpose was for it to be used in and other related products. There were however, several small companies that purchased the 4-bit chip to include in the computer kits they were offering, known as the first . These kits had to be assembled by the user, meaning you had to have knowledge of what you were doing if you purchased one. The reason for this was simply to be able to offer the computer at a cheaper price, as no labour was required.

In 1975, chairman of MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) Ed Roberts managed to persuade Intel to sell its 8-bit 8080 microprocessor to him in bulk for $75 each, as opposed to the retail price of $300. This was due to the chips having cosmetic defects. This meant he could offer an 8-bit computer in kit form for much cheaper than usual, which was finally dubbed the Altair 8800. What you got for your $439, or $621 ready-assembled, was an coupled to just 256 of memory (Nicholson, 2014, p.25). This is the equivalent today of $2,000 and $2,830 respectively. While this seems to be too much for the average consumer, in comparison, a would have cost roughly $90,000 in today’s money.

Roberts managed to get the Altair into the magazine Popular , which had a readership of 450,000. After a week of the product being available on the market, MITS had orders for over 2,000 machines. Basically, the hobby electronics community went nuts (Reimer, 2005). MITS was unable to meet the demand for the product, however people were willing to wait as long as it took for them to get their hands on the Altair. It had officially kick-started the growth.

Figure 1 The Altair 8800 Computer

Meanwhile, two college dropouts Steve Jobs and formed the Apple Computer Company in April 1976. The previous year, Wozniak had attended his first 14 meeting at the Computer Club, something that was set up for computer enthusiasts to attend and share ideas. There, he encountered the Altair, which drove him to realise he could create something much better, while being cheaper. This realisation became the Apple-1, which went on sale as a for $666 and offered 4KB of memory. The big difference was the MOS 6502 processor at its heart. MOS Technology had created a variant of the processor that was launched in 1974, however the 6502 offered slots that meant the Apple-1 had to be plugged in externally to a keyboard and a TV or monitor, rather than using the switches and lights that the Altair used. This meant the Apple-1 was in fact relatively pricey for what you got. It did however, set the standard that microcomputers should have a -style keyboard rather than a row of switches and should display results on an ordinary TV set or video monitor rather than a row of light bulbs (Nicholson, 2014, p.40).

The Apple II was the first of a new generation of computers powerful enough to appeal to a much wider – an audience interested in what a computer could do, rather than the electronics that made it possible. This was not a printed circuit board and a bunch of chips that you had to put together yourself, or a box into which you had to enter arcane code before it would even recognise you were there: it was something you could unpack, plug in, turn on and start using straight away (Nicholson, 2014, p.41). The Apple II debuted in late 1976 and ran off the same 6502 processor as the Apple-1, however it boasted increased memory expansion slots and this time offered a case and a keyboard. The real difference was its ability to display colour on a TV set or video display monitor, yet this did require large volumes of memory. It retailed at $1,298 with 4KB of memory or $1,698 for 16KB of memory, the equivalent of $5,646 and $7,386 today respectively. Initial sales were sluggish as Apple sold only 600 machines in 1977 (Reimer, 2005). This was due to its high price compared to the other competitors I will talk about next. Its sales did dramatically increase however with the introduction of , the first program, as it was only available at first on the Apple II (see Section 5.3).

Figure 2 The Apple II

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In 1976, MOS Technology was purchased by a company called Commodore, which was floating around in the market trying to keep up with the chip manufacturers who now controlled it. Like MITS, Commodore decided to enter the personal computer market and the result was the Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor). While the PET didn’t offer the capability to run a coloured display like the Apple II, it cost just $495 for 4KB of memory and $795 for 8KB. This gave you a built-in display and a keyboard along with the unit. As you can imagine with capabilities similar to the Apple II, extra hardware and a much cheaper price, sales were high. Commodore increased the price of the 4KB version to $595 soon after, to increase the demand for the 8KB version which then became more value for money. Commodore sold 4,000 PETs in 1978 and sales kept rising (Reimer, 2005).

Elsewhere, Radio Shack were a well-known electronics company who also decided that they wanted a taste of the personal computer market. The Tandy-Radio Shack 80 (TRS-80) was the only machine to use a different processor to the ones previously mentioned. The Z80 processor launched in 1976 by (A company set up by an old Intel employee) was an upgraded version of the 8080 processor of Intel. The TRS went on sale at $600 with a keyboard and video display, or $400 for just the keyboard. Although being similarly priced to the PET, the advantage for Radio Shack was its established branding and 6,000 stores in which the TRS was sold. Within the first month, Radio Shack sold 10,000 units, and by the end of the following year, magazine was reporting sales of 100,000 units. This was four times as many as the Commodore PET and five times as many as the Apple II (Nicholson, 2014, p.44).

Figure 3 PC Sales 1975-80

The machines mentioned above were set on grabbing the attention of the hobbyist and games community. However, with the introduction of business orientated applications, personal computers were attracting business users, which in turn caught the attention of IBM.

IBM had ruled the business world since the 60’s, mainly based on mainframes and minicomputers. It had no presence in the personal computer market and it started to see the potential of producing its own machine. The problem for IBM was the speed of the ever-

16 changing market, so in an effort to create a product quickly, it decided to hand the task over to one of its smaller teams that it knew could get the job done within a year, using off-the- shelf components. However, this meant anyone could get their hands on them, which would have consequences almost immediately.

In late 1981, the IBM PC was released. The 16-bit Intel 8088 processor was chosen, as unlike its predecessor the 8086 (also 16-bit), it was compatible with 8-bit memory chips as well. Perhaps the biggest change was the use of floppy disks over cassette drives for the storage. The had been invented in 1971 by the same team that created the IBM PC, however it took a number of years for them to be affordable. They offered more storage and were considerably faster at loading programs. A program that might take five or ten minutes to transfer from an audio cassette could be loaded from a floppy disk in just a few seconds (Nicholson, 2014, p.64). The base model was marketed at $1,565. This got you just 16KB of memory and used a cassette drive rather than floppy disk drives. The most practical model was $3,390 and included 64KB of memory, two floppy disk drives and also a monitor (greyscale). This is the equivalent of just over $9,000 today. Initial sales were slow, but did pick up once the PC started to incorporate popular software applications.

Figure 4 IBM PC

Commodore, realising the PET was running out of gas, started a number of new 8-bit computer projects based around their 6502 and custom chips developed in-house by MOS Technologies (Reimer, 2005). The real successor was the , which was released in 1982 and retailed for $595. It offered a massive 64KB of memory, which was the maximum RAM that could be addressed by any 8-bit processor. Other computers offering this much memory were selling for three times the amount. This made it an attraction to writing for the platform, specifically games developers. By 1983, the Commodore 64 had reached 2 million sales, smashing the sales of all the computers before it out the window. Even today, that number of sales would be a respectable figure.

IBM’s decision to use off-the-shelf components for its IBM PC would turn out to be one of the most influential decisions to ever be made in the personal computer market, as its

17 impacts continue to dominate the market to this day. Although the IBM PC had the badge, other manufacturers were starting to realise that they could build something that did exactly the same thing, but faster and for less money (Nicholson, 2014, p.84). The IBM PCs was supplied by who made a shrewd deal allowing it to market the operating system (known as MS-DOS) to other manufactures (Ceruzzi, 2012, p.115).

Compaq was the first company to produce what became known as an “IBM compatible” and other companies soon followed including AST Research, , Hewlett-Packard, NEC, Olivetti, Tandy, Wyse and Zenith. Together, these nine companies created a new 32-bit specification called EISA (Extended Industry Standard Architecture). It was this new standard that helped drive the price of these IBM compatibles down which in turn drove the demand up.

Figure 5 PC Sales 1980-84

Apple had been trying to develop a successor to the Apple II ever since its debut in 1976. In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh, which was the first computer to boast a Graphical User (GUI), along with a mouse. Remaining true to Apple’s other products, the Mac ran using the processor and offered 128KB of memory, along with two micro floppy disk drives and a 9-inch display. It retailed for $2,495 which for what you got, was too expensive to appeal to the majority. Like the Apple II, it took the availability of certain business applications to kick-start the growth of the Mac.

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Figure 6 Apple Macintosh

There were two other developments that impacted the price and demand for both the IBM and its compatibles as well as the Macintosh, which by the early 90’s made up the entire market. The first was the emergence of the Graphical (GUI) along with the mouse which helped make the PC a more intuitive device that could be used by anyone, regardless of their knowledge. The second was the emergence of the PC as a communications device. The development of Local Area Networks (LANs) and dial-up connectivity kick-started this transformation followed by the World Wide Web alongside broadband connectivity in the 90’s delivering internet communications into the hands of every PC user (see Section 5.3).

From the mid-80s onwards PC device developments have been driven largely by these two non-device factors and this is covered in Section 5.3. From a purely device point of view this has followed Moore’s Law with incremental increases in processing power and storage capacity being accompanied by reductions in price. It is this increase in the power/price ratio that has largely maintained the continued growth in PC sales up to 2010, although there have been some interruptions to the growth curve.

Figure 7 PC Sales 1984-1990

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Throughout the 80’s it was the increased bundling of device, operating system and application software together into packaged products that maintained the growth, largely into the home market.

Figure 8 PC Sales 1990-2001

A decline in sales from the late 80’s into the early 90’s was reversed throughout the 90’s by the increased use of PCs for communications thanks to the Internet and World Wide Web. In the 2000’s laptops replaced desktop PCs as mobile computing became possible and since 2010, PC and laptop sales have been in decline as tablets and smart phones have become the devices of choice.

5.2 Mobile Phones & Tablets

In the same way that I didn’t know that personal computers only became available in the mid-70s, I didn’t realise that the first mobile phones were either mounted in cars or that they were so big and heavy that they were not really mobile.

There were initially three types of devices – Car phones, Transportables and Handportables. The car phone was set up using the supporting electronics and battery power located in the car itself. The transportable was much like the car phone, however this provided a supporting battery pack to allow its user to take the device outside of the car and ensure it would remain operable. Finally, the handportable was the smallest device, designed specifically for portability to ensure that it could be carried at all times by its user.

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Figure 9 A Panasonic Transportable

Cellular networks started to appear in Japan, Scandinavia and the US between 1979 and 1985. In the UK, two licenses were offered by the government to operate mobile cellular networks within the country, which by 1985 were claimed by BT Cellnet and Vodafone.

Cellnet initially chose Motorola as its handset supplier, while Vodafone chose a combination of Panasonic and Mobira (later to become Nokia). Between 1985 and 1990, Nokia and Motorola propelled themselves to become the leading handset manufacturing companies, by quite some distance too. While the functionality of the handportable changed little, its overall appearance altered significantly, being reduced from a bulky brick phone to one that would truly sit comfortably inside a pocket or small bag (Sutton and Linge, 2015, p.23). Its pricing also had quite a significant change, falling from £3,000 to around £500 by the late 1980’s. This decrease sparked interest by the average consumer and not just businesses, who were the typical users at this time.

The one underlying limitation of the mobile at this point in time was its incompatibility with foreign network frequencies, meaning a UK mobile could only operate inside the UK and could only contact other UK mobiles – this was the same throughout Europe. In 1982, a group called Groupé Special Mobile (GSM) was set up by the European Commission to create a mobile standard to ensure compatibility between all networks, regardless of country. It was agreed that GSM must be based on digital technology rather than the current analogue system. This digital technology would give way to the second-generation of mobile phones, known as 2G.

The first operator to launch a GSM service was Vodafone, launching in 1992, with Motorola launching the first GSM handportable the previous year. With the introduction of 2G, the Short Message Service (SMS) was developed as a secondary service for mobile operators to send network update to its customers. Being limited to 160 characters per message it was never conceived that it might one day become a primary form of communication for millions (Sutton and Linge, 2015, p.25).

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Figure 10 Motorola International 3200 – First GSM Handportable

To increase competition within the mobile network market, two other licences were offered to operators who could provide GSM networks. In 1993, one2one was launched as the second GSM operator within the UK. Cellnet finally launched its own GSM network later on in 1993, while the remaining new license was claimed by Hutchinson Telecom, who launched its network in 1994, named Orange.

Perhaps the biggest change with the transition to GSM and 2G networks was the introduction of the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card. Previously with analogue networks, the mobile number was hard coded into the device, this meant purchasing a new handset resulted in a new mobile number. The SIM card allowed manufacturers to mass produce phones which could then be configured for a particular operator in a given country by inserting the correct SIM (Sutton and Linge, 2015, p.30). This change created a mass market, which in turn helped to drive handset prices down and move the mobile from being the preserve of the business user to become a must-have device for the general consumer (Sutton and Linge, 2015, p.30). In 1999, a mobile phone was sold every 4 seconds and UK ownership reached 46% of the population, increasing to 73% in 2000.

When Nokia released its first GSM handset, the 1011 in 1992, it took the first steps to surpassing Motorola to become the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. It finally achieved this feat in 1998, with help from a few features built into its newest mobiles. The first was the iconic Nokia , released in 1994 with the 2110i. Secondly there was the famous game of Snake, released with the 6110 in 1997 and lastly, the interchangeable covers in 1998 with the release of the 5110. These introductions, along with Motorola’s decision to focus primarily on the analogue market for several years, allowed Nokia to dominate.

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Figure 11 Nokia 2110i (Left) & Nokia 6110 (Right)

With the mobile becoming a mass-market consumer item and ownership exceeding half of the population, it was now that truly took off. In 2000, 6.2 billion text messages were sent over the UK GSM networks (Sutton and Linge, 2015, p.36). 2000 also saw the end of the analogue era as BT Cellnet (renamed from Cellnet) and Vodafone closed their networks down meaning the UK had now become a fully digital country. The mobile had now become a common object, affordable to the millions and beginning to be recognised not just for telephone calls. Manufacturers managed to exploit this new market to push sales to new heights. The Nokia 1100, released in 2003 is the world’s top-selling phone of all time, selling over 250 million handsets worldwide (Sutton and Linge, 2015, p.41).

Figure 12 Nokia 1100 – Worlds Top-Selling Phone

As dial-up connectivity and broadband started to appear, connecting home PC’s to the internet became a daily occurrence for most. This generated a large demand for on the move. The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) was a step towards this, allowing the browsers to display correctly at a reduced size due to the low resolutions. WAP was much slower than browsing on a PC or laptop, making it quite

23 unpopular until the introduction of the General Service (GPRS) which was added to GSM networks and launched in 2000, firstly by BT Cellnet. Vodafone and Orange followed in 2001, with T-Mobile (renamed from One2One) in 2002. GPRS opened up the opportunity for much smoother and larger scale internet access, supporting up to 10 kb/s. It provided the foundations for today’s networks, which still use the technology.

GPRS was adopted firstly and largely by business users with the Blackberry devices that were starting to appear. Blackberry started to introduce the idea of having a handset that acted like a personal companion, with multiple functionality such as email, calendar, alarm, calculator, notes etc. IBM is credited with the first step in this direction with its Simon Personal Communicator Phone released in 1993, however without internet access, it never really had a purpose. GPRS paved the way for mobiles to become multi-functional, something we see now in modern smartphones. BT Cellnet was the first network to support Blackberry, launching in 2002, with the remaining networks following shortly after. Blackberry started to dominate the business market, however it did not manage to grab a foothold in the consumer market, for now.

Another benefit of developing the data capability of the mobile was the ability to start exploiting communications. None more so than the development of the camera phone (Sutton and Linge, 2015, pp.49-50). T-Mobile were the first network to launch picture-messaging within the UK in 2002. There was however, only one phone that could support this new service, the Sony Ericsson T68i. Sony Ericsson was formed after a deal between Sony and Ericsson to come together to produce handsets in 2001 and would last until 2012. Sony Ericsson would later introduce the first ‘Walkman’ phones, the first to have music truly integrated. The ‘Cybershot’ branding was also the introduction of high quality camera phones. By the end of 2002, the remaining three operators had all launched a commercial Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS).

Figure 13 Sony Ericsson T68i – With Camera Attachment

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2003 saw the release of third-generation networks, or 3G, with the launch of Hutchinson’s new Three . The UK government held an auction in 2000 for each network to bid on a segment of what was to be known as the 3G spectrum. Three was the winner of the segment offered to a new competitor and was the first to launch the service, followed by Vodafone and Orange in 2004, then T-Mobile and O2 (renamed from BT Cellnet) in 2005. The £22 billion raised in the auction across the five operators was so excessive that the roll- out of 3G was delayed by the lack of funds for investment.

While the take up of 3G handsets was lagging behind that of its predecessor, 3G data cards were the opposite. These data cards were first shipped in 2004 and allowed for massive increases in speed compared to GPRS, offering up to 384 kb/s download and 64 kb/s upload speeds. They were increasingly popular with business users due to the Blackberry handsets that most owned. The increase in data speeds greatly improved the of the internet browsing and email services.

Blackberry took the first steps to entering the consumer market with the release of its Curve range in 2007. The main attraction was the introduction of Blackberry Messenger (BBM) which was the first step towards the instant messaging services we see today. Blackberry introduced a new Curve in 2009 along with the new Bold range, which was very popular amongst the younger generation for the BBM service due to the texting and talk time restrictions in most contracts.

Figure 14 BlackBerry Curve (Left) & BlackBerry Bold (Right)

Perhaps the greatest revelation and change of direction in the history of the mobile phone came with the launch of the Apple iPhone in 2007. The iPhone was initially released on 2G, with Apple making an exclusive agreement with O2 that meant the phone could only be sold on its network, however Orange and Vodafone did manage to get the iPhone onto their networks by 2010. There were several releases of smartphones prior to the iPhone, the Blackberry curve being the most recent and recognised, however they all followed the traditional style and of a mobile phone and were always seen as a phone first and

25 computer second. Apple reversed this trend with the iPhone, creating a truly multi- functional device, which set the standard of what a smartphone should look like.

Touchscreens were not a new concept, however having a whole device as was, with Apple also introducing new ways to interact with a touchscreen using gestures like swiping and pinch-to-. Another important aspect was the . Apple used its own Safari browser on the device, which was the first to render websites almost identically to their appearance on a PC or laptop. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the introduction of the allowed third-party developers to produce applications to run on the device, opening up the potential for the phone to be used for quite literally anything. As of 2016, there are over 2 million apps on the App Store.

The iPhone was upgraded for connectivity to 3G networks in 2008 with the release of the iPhone 3G and then the 3GS in 2009 (Sutton and Linge, 2015, p.83.).

Figure 15 Original Apple iPhone

Apple were the first company to change the way we thought about the mobile phone, but they were not the only company to do so. In late 2007, Google released its Android smartphone operating system. It was made available to any mobile manufacturer to include in their products, making many companies drop their own for an independent operating system to include Android instead. Android works similarly to Apple’s own iOS operating system, using gestures and offering its own version of the App Store called Google Play. The first device to include Android was the HTC Dream, released in 2008. Today, Samsung is the largest provider of Android with its Galaxy series. The Galaxy S4, launched in 2013 is Samsung’s fastest-selling smartphone, with 20 million being sold globally within the first two months (Sutton and Linge, 2015, p.83.).

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Figure 16 Samsung Galaxy S4

As of 2016, Android makes up 78% of the smartphone operating system market, comparing this to Apple on 15%, you can see just how much of a success Android has been. Of that 78% that it takes up, 23% is Samsung, followed by many other companies such as , LG, , Motorola, Sony etc. all taking up negligible percentages (Gartner, 2016).

The fourth generation of mobile communications technology, or 4G, arrived in the UK in 2012 with the launch of EE (renamed from Everything Everywhere). EE had been formed a couple years earlier by the merge of Orange UK and T-Mobile UK (Sutton and Linge, 2015, p.86.). Similarly to the launch of 3G, an auction was held and it was decided that there would be a new entrant to push the number of operators back to five. This new entrant turned out to be BT, and alongside the usual O2, Vodafone, Three and of course EE, managed to bring the total amount raised in the auction to almost £2.4 billion. This reduced total compared to the 3G auction was to ensure that the operators could invest into the infrastructure to allow 4G not to suffer the same lagging start that occurred with 3G. Both Vodafone and O2 launched 4G in the summer of 2013, with Three following shortly after, while BT re-entered the mobile market as late as 2015.

The shift to iOS and Android, as well as 4G has massively changed the way we think about a phone contract. Previously, operators never even offered a data allowance, it was a simply a small charge per kilobyte or megabyte, while the main interest was maximising the minutes and texts allowance. Today, to see a contract without unlimited minutes and texts is a occurrence, whereas previously this would be a top-level contract charging upwards of £60 per month, even on a standard Nokia handset. The focus is now on data allowance, and although minutes are still a somewhat important factor, the SMS has pretty much become extinct, with the first steps toward this actually coming from Blackberry with its BBM service, followed by Apple’s iMessage several years later and now today with the endless amounts of instant messaging apps seen on both the App Store and Google Play – Whats

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App being the most regarded. The ability to browse the web, , stream music and use social media, all at ease, requires relatively large sums of data, but this is all possible now with the latest 4G network speeds, as well as the huge data allowances that the network operators offer. With all of this in mind, the £60 contract I mentioned above would get you a much different looking contract today, almost guaranteeing unlimited minutes and texts with upwards of 10 gigabytes of data for the month, even on the latest smartphones.

The earliest mobiles were designed with one thing in mind – size. Mobile phone manufacturers like Nokia and Motorola were constantly trying to reduce the size of their handsets. Today, with the latest smartphones, manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung are reversing this trend, as we now want to fit as much information onto a mobile screen as possible. A direct result of this is the tablet.

We often think of the iPad as being the first tablet, launched back in 2010, however tablets have been around for decades. Alan Kay’s vision of the Dynabook in 1972 can be recognised as the first interpretation of what a tablet should be. Researchers at Xerox PARC did manage to develop Kay’s ideas into a device, the Alto A4 sized tablet. By 1976, they had 50 of these being networked over a (LAN), however they were just for testing purposes and were never released.

The next progression wouldn’t emerge until 1992, with IBM releasing its ThinkPad, followed by Apple releasing the Newton MessagePad in 1993. Both these devices suffered from being expensive especially when looking at the capabilities offered, it simply wasn’t worth it for the average consumer.

Figure 17 Apple Newton MessagePad

The introduction of the iPad in 2010 came at a perfect time for Apple. Prior to this, mobile phones and laptops offered all the functionality whilst remaining portable, one being small and one being large. With the gradual increase in size of mobiles since the introduction of the iPhone and the gradual decrease in size of the laptop with the introduction of the notebook, the tablet was the real convergence of the two. This, and the ability to offer the

28 same functionality as both a mobile and a laptop, meant that purchasing a tablet became viable for the first time to many.

Figure 18 Original Apple iPad

Apple still hold control of the tablet market to this day. As of 2013, Apple hold 36% of the market, with its closest competitor, Samsung, holding just 19%, however this is on the rise. Android win the operating system battle yet again, holding 62% of the market, compared to the 36% of Apple’s iOS (Gartner, 2014).

It is curious to see how the mobile phone has become more of a mobile, handheld computer than simply a mobile phone over this period. Whereas the PC became more of a communication tool than just a computing device, the mobile phone has gone in the opposite direction and to some extent, along with tablets, is replacing the PC for truly personal computing purposes. It is also interesting to see that the PC has never undergone any significant hardware changes, yet the mobile has seen substantial changes such as the camera, GPS, touch screen etc.

5.3 Other Relevant IT Developments

This section is devoted to the range of non-device developments which occurred throughout the era discussed above which have had a material effect on the way the devices themselves have evolved. I have grouped these into the following categories:

- Operating Systems - Application software or Apps - Internet/World Wide Web - Broadband & Wi-Fi - Cloud computing - Social Media

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There is a natural chronology in the sequence of this list and within each of the categories studied, I have also maintained a chronological narrative.

5.3.1 Operating Systems

The operating system made its official debut with the introduction of the floppy . Beforehand, enthusiasts would assemble their own machines and write simple programs. It wasn’t until the PC transformed into a machine usable by anyone that it required an operating system, this was with the introduction of the keyboard, TV monitor and disk drive etc. as these pieces of hardware had to be managed to make efficient use of them.

The earliest example of a (DOS) was CP/M, written by Gary Kildall, founder of . Kildall had designed CP/M for Intel based processors, and persisted in finding companies to license his operating system to, which eventually payed off with CP/M becoming the industry standard DOS by the late 70’s.

One company which didn’t incorporate CP/M onto its machine was Apple. This was due to the Apple II being built using the 6502 processor from MOS Technology, which could not run CP/M. Instead, Apple wrote its own operating system called Apple DOS, which didn’t quite have the same effect as CP/M.

When IBM were developing its famous IBM PC of 1981, it decided to outsource the operating system to another company, so one of the most important decisions was the company to choose. Through some negotiating, this turned out to be Microsoft, founded in 1975 by and Bill Gates.

While this was important, perhaps the most important part was Microsoft purchasing 86- DOS, an operating system written by Seattle Computer Products, which was then rebranded as MS-DOS. What this meant was IBM got its own operating system based on MS-DOS called PC-DOS, which they owned, while Microsoft could continue to market its MS-DOS to any PC manufacturer that required it, which of course it did with the emergence of the IBM PC compatible.

Apple had the advantage of being offered the technology that was developed at Xerox PARC in 1979, most notably the (GUI) and the mouse. Using these, Apple developed its new operating system based around the GUI using the mouse to control it, which was released in 1984 with the Macintosh. Interestingly, Bill Gates offered to help license the new Apple operating system to other companies, much like Microsoft had done, however Apple declined. Microsoft then went on to develop its own GUI based operating system released in 1985, called Windows, something that probably would not have occurred if Apple had accepted Gates’ offer. This would have led to one industry standard operating system, rather than the two we see today.

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Windows followed MS-DOS onto the IBM compatible PCs and then went on to create a worldwide standard, alongside Apple’s Mac OS. This meant a mass market for application software developers emerged. This was crucial as only Windows and Apple versions needed to be produced and the high cost of developing applications could now be spread across high unit sales, making each copy very cheap.

5.3.2 Application Software

Early PC application software was something that the PC owners themselves developed. This was one of the major reasons to own a PC and hobbyist groups met to show and share what they had developed. Initially computer games were the main interest, but this was soon replaced by business applications such as , word processing and databases. The spreadsheet program VisiCalc, released in 1979 for the Apple II, was the first major software application to benefit from and encourage the growth of personal computer usage.

Within the hobbyist community there was a widespread feeling that software should be as it was being developed mainly by computer enthusiasts in their own time. Bill Gates was one of the earliest to speak out against this idea largely because Microsoft was software focused and could see the mass market that was becoming available for operating systems and business applications. When Microsoft launched MS-DOS, it also created its Application Division to take advantage of the mass market for PC software which was emerging as a result of standardisation across PC devices. Even though 2 main standards were emerging for PC devices – IBM compatibles and Apple – Microsoft was the leading software company writing applications for both platforms.

The early 80’s also saw the emergence of Aldus PageMaker desk top publishing software and Lotus 123 which helped to create more business demand for PCs. With the advent of GUI-based operating systems, applications became easier to use and the global standards of Windows and Mac OS meant that the development costs of writing software could be spread over high unit sales, thereby keeping prices low. Both of these things were important in maintaining the growth of PC usage within the business and consumer markets.

With Microsoft dominating both the OS and application software markets, they convinced PC manufacturers to "bundle" its products into the price of a PC, creating "ready-to-use" packages. From 1990, the same year it released Windows 3.0, became available, incorporating four applications – Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Email. Office went on to become the leading business package for both PCs and the Mac and still is to this day. It also helped make PCs easier to use, particularly for home use and helped to drive growth throughout the 90's.

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5.3.3 Internet/World Wide Web

Computer connectivity and communication began almost as soon as computers themselves were developed. In 1969 the ARPA (Advance Projects Research Agency) a US government- funded organisation created ARPANET as a means of connecting scientific and computing resources throughout the world. Initially, connectivity was developed to enhance scientific research and collaboration and was aimed solely at the relatively small number of large computers that were in use at that time.

It was the research work at Xerox PARC that laid the ground for PC connectivity and communications between 1976 and 1980, with the development of local area networks (LANs) and the standard. This helped create the idea amongst the consumer that PCs can be used for communication purposes, although pre-Internet there was not much use.

In 1982, ARPANET defined international protocols for the packet switching of data across networks called Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), more commonly known as TCP/IP, which has been the basis of data communications ever since. By the mid-80’s, the term Internet was coined to describe the many separate computer networks connected using TCP/IP. By 1990 the ARPANET was closed down and replaced by a consortium of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), freeing the Internet to be used for commercial and more general purposes, however most users who purchased Internet subscriptions from these ISPs were unsure of what to do once connected, as there wasn’t much to do at all, yet this shows the interest was there.

The World Wide Web emerged in 1990, developed by Tim Berners-Lee at the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN). It allowed the sharing of diverse information seamlessly across the Internet. Berners-Lee’s invention had three basic components. The first was a uniform resource locator (URL), which took a computer to any location on the Internet. The second was a protocol, called transfer protocol (http), which sat on top of the Internet protocols and facilitated the exchange of files from a variety of sources. The third was a simple hypertext markup language (HTML), a subset of a formatting language already in use on IBM mainframes. Berners-Lee also wrote a program, called a browser, that users installed on their computer to decode and properly display the information transmitted over the Web (Ceruzzi, 2012, pp.134-135). Browsers were, and still are free to use.

Together, the Internet and the World Wide Web created a place that users could go to access endless amounts of information and to communicate with one another. They brought another dimension to the PC, one that attracted anyone, regardless of their interest in computers. Most importantly, browsers were simple to use and alongside the operating system, put the computer in the hands of the ordinary consumer. By the mid 90’s, the Web

32 servers in use had trebled, with 30 million PCs connected to the Internet, and this was achieved using dial-up connections with speeds of 56 kb/s or less.

5.3.4 Broadband & Wi-Fi

As websites grew in number and complexity, and as the Internet became more popular, the slow speed of dial-up connectivity was becoming a drawback. Broadband breathed new life into the Internet in 2000 by allowing the signal in one line to be split between telephone and Internet, meaning users could be online and make telephone calls at the same time, something that could not be done with dial-up. This also led to faster connections, making it easier to browse the Web and download files (uSwitch, 2017).

Like most new innovations, broadband was slow out of the blocks, due to pricing. It took a while for people to wake up to the technology, but then they stampeded: in 2002, there were fewer than 200,000 broadband users. Four years later, there were 13 million and by 2010, there was closer to 20 million, accounting for two-thirds of all households in the UK (Youde, 2010).

Broadband opened up a whole new possibility for sites on the Web, particularly in online media. On dial-up speeds, it wasn’t possible for sites like YouTube to exist. This provided an even larger attraction to the average consumer than before, with music, video, news and even social media websites starting to appear. Users could now access these sites with ease, and browsing the web truly became efficient. The next step was to be able to access the speeds of broadband while on the move. This could already be achieved on mobiles with 3G, however browsing the web was not as efficient as on a laptop or desktop, with mobile data allowances being restricted, speeds being slower and screen resolutions being smaller.

In stepped Wi-Fi, first created in 1997 with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard. Wi-Fi is a way of getting broadband internet to a device using wireless and radio signals (Wood, 2014), however wireless routers didn’t appear until 1999, as they had to include a Wi-Fi , something the current routers didn’t include. In 2003, the 802.11g standard was introduced, which meant faster speeds and greater distances coverage. Wi-Fi speeds were catching up with that of wired connections, making it just as efficient.

As Wi-Fi “hotspots” started to appear, manufacturers started to adopt the technology further, packing Wi-Fi capability into most laptops and smartphones, providing them with the means to access the Internet anywhere with Wi-Fi coverage. This led to a decline in sales of desktop PCs. By 2005, 100 million Wi-Fi were being sold annually, with the number totalling 1 billion by 2009. Wi-Fi hotspots also reached 1 million in 2009, with this reaching a staggering 70 million by 2015.

With the launch of the 802.11n standard in 2009, Wi-Fi has reached the speeds capable of matching wired connections. This has rendered the desktop PC useless for a large portion of

33 consumers, with the laptop, mobile and now tablet becoming the device of choice due to its efficient capability to browse the Web whilst remaining truly portable.

5.3.5 Cloud Computing

With the introduction of online media sites, the companies behind these required large storage to be able to host the files uploaded or downloaded from the site. This was the start of what we have come to know as Cloud Computing.

The simplest explanation of the Cloud is the provision of computing power to users who can connect from anywhere at any time via a range of devices. This can be achieved by accessing a website or by using a locally installed “App” on the device which connects automatically to the Cloud service.

Music became one of the first products to be traded electronically via the Internet using sites such as Napster, Spotify and iTunes. The earliest sites like Napster required you to download the files from the host server, however more recent companies like Spotify, launched in 2008, are now fully cloud based and allow you to play music without being required to download any files. This is a massive convenience for the average consumer, as it doesn’t require you to use up any localised storage.

Companies such as Apple and Microsoft now have their own cloud based storage facilities, named iCloud and One Drive respectively, that allow users of their products to store and access documents and data from anywhere. This opens up the opportunity for cross device compatibility, meaning the file can be stored in iCloud for example, then accessed on any device, providing it has Internet access.

The take up of Cloud Computing has been essential for services such as online shopping, news and social media etc. to exist and thrive on the Web, which today make up a huge percentage of Internet traffic. The Cloud is responsible for the surge of mobile phone and tablet sales and the decline of PC sales as, along with Wi-Fi, allows a with minimal storage, access to an unlimited supply of online services.

5.3.6 Social Media

Social Networks are a specialist form of cloud service which emerged with Myspace in 2003, Facebook in 2004 and Twitter in 2006. Their main use is to share and view information and media about individuals, businesses or to just simply “keep in touch” with news, however they have arguably replaced email and the phone as the preferred media of interaction for younger generations (Van Dijck, 2013, p.51 cited Raynes-Goldie, 2010), as they also provide instant messaging services.

Facebook and Twitter started out as largely text based, however with the introduction of in 2010 and Snapchat in 2011, and the huge surge in popularity of YouTube with

34 the introduction of vlogs (video blogs), social media has moved largely towards photo and video sharing. Between 2005 and 2012, YouTube became the third most popular Internet site in the world, boasting four billion videos and uploading more content per month than all three major US television networks combined have done in sixty years (Van Dijck, 2013, p.111).

Social Networking alongside Web browsing have been two massive driving forces for greater device take-up and usage, taking advantage of the massive strides in mobile connectivity and Cloud Computing capability. Social Media has revolutionised the way we see and use devices, allowing constant connectivity through cellular and Wi-Fi, meaning we now feel connected to the entire world at all times.

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6. A CAUSAL ANALYSIS OF DEVICE GROWTH AND EVOLUTION

This chapter tries to make sense of all that has been described in Chapter 5. It looks at the interrelationships across the three main areas of PCs & Laptops, Mobile Phones & Tablets and Other Relevant IT Developments and attempts to define the “how & why” of what happened. By analysing the detailed timeline of these three separate sections which is enclosed as Appendix 1, I have produced an Analysis Timeline, shown as Appendix 2, which summarises the whole 41-year period considered into six broad time frames. I have used these six time frames as the basis of this analysis section.

6.1 Microprocessor Era 1975-1982

The emergence of personal computers was based initially on the availability of , i.e. hardware driven, although there was clearly a demand for personal computing capability as initial orders for the Altair proved – 2,000 following a single advert in Popular Electronics magazine. Hobbyists and games enthusiasts provided the initial market and the emergence of a standard operating system (CP/M) encouraged games and early application software development. Apple was significant in putting together the first “PC package” incorporating keyboard, and external monitor (TV) and this ensured that PCs were no longer limited to the hobbyist community, but could be purchased and set up by anybody, producing a much larger potential market.

It was not long before applications such as VisiCalc attracted the attention of business users and developed early growth into this sector. With the entry of IBM into the PC market in 1981, this gave the personal computer a whole new image and provided the foundation for a new market of business users.

Although mobile phones were available during this period, they were all car mounted and so expensive that only business users could afford them. Interestingly, early tablets had been developed, but these were simply expensive prototypes.

The emphasis in this period was focused on the idea of putting processing power in the hands of individuals via the smart use of microprocessors at a price much less than existing large computers and just about affordable for the enthusiast.

6.2 Packaged Products 1983-1988

The IBM PC and its clones created the business market, but it was the standardisation of operating systems, initially CP/M followed by PC-DOS/MS-DOS and then Windows on IBM compatibles and Mac OS on the Apple, which created a mass market for software application developers. This allowed the high costs of software development to be spread across high sales, thereby making the unit price of software very low for the . This also encouraged the “bundling” of PC, operating system and applications into a

36 packaged product that was both cheap to buy and easy to use – these came out-of-the-box and only needed to be plugged in and switched on.

Mobile phones started to become mobile (although large) with the advent of handportables and western countries all developed their own cellular networks which sparked business subscriber growth.

6.3 Mobiles arrive; PCs dip 1989-1991

The arrival of 2G digital networks along with the introduction of GSM coincided with mobile handsets became smaller and lighter. The SIM card paved the way for the mass production of handsets, which drove prices down to the extent where the mobile phone market became consumer rather than just business based. This provided rapid growth with almost unlimited potential. In 1983, consultants McKinsey & Co had estimated the size of the mobile phone market to be 900,000 by the end of the millennium. In fact, it was around 40 million in the UK alone by the year 2000.

PC sales dropped for the first time and this can be traced partly to a world recession in the late 80s and early 90s which affected the business market. It is questionable whether the early GUIs were user-friendly enough to encourage mass home use and the lack of applications for home use had not opened up this market as yet. Microsoft Office was not available until 1990, MS-DOS was still widely used and it was not until Windows 3.1, shipped in 1992, that GUI-based operating systems made applications truly easy to use.

6.4 Internet Era begins 1992-2000

This era saw PC sales grow consistently, but the main question is what caused this growth?

Prices continued to fall as computing power improved but there were no major breakthroughs in hardware or application software in this period. The answer would appear to be the emergence of the World Wide Web in bringing Internet connectivity to the mass market, even with dial-up connectivity’s slow, limited data exchange. This started to prove Alan Kay’s remark in the mid-70’s, “a computer is a communications device first, second and third” (Ceruzzi, 2012, p.124).

The mobile device market continued to grow as the price of handsets was driven down by rising sales volumes and the entry of supermarkets into phone retailing. Texting started to become the main form of communication and the introduction of WAP and GPRS also started to provide early Internet access.

6.5 Mobile computing & Data connectivity 2001-2006

The growth in mobile devices continued as new applications such as GPS and camera functionality became available and 3G networks improved Internet access and picture

37 messaging. Mobile phone usage was increasingly based on data connectivity rather than making phone calls using the phone for , messaging and web browsing.

PC growth flattened and laptops were starting to replace desktop sales as the demand for mobile computing was enabled by broadband and Wi-Fi availability. The availability of personal, mobile communication coincided with early Social Media services such as MySpace and Facebook and these created even more data traffic and demand for higher bandwidth and transmission speeds.

6.6 Smartphones & Tablets rule 2007-2016

The iPhone set the future agenda for smartphones and eventually tablets. The emergence of 4G networks put data interchange at the heart of mobile computing and after 2010 it was these mobile devices which dominated the mass market with PC sales tailing off.

New applications such as Social Media and a range of Cloud services were designed to be consumed from mobile devices regardless of location. It is unlikely that Social Media and Cloud-based services accessed via mobile Apps could have emerged to the extent it has without this personal, mobile communication capability. On the other hand, it could be argued that the initial development of these new uses of mobile computing has further encouraged the development of faster and more widespread data connectivity.

As mentioned in section 5.3, in 2009 there were 1m Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide, with this reaching 70m by 2015.

6.7 Summary

Personal computing devices were initially produced because the microprocessor made this possible. It was a novel idea in an era of large, expensive mainframe and mini computers for individuals to have access to their own computing resource. The market for these kits and part-products was initially limited to hobbyists and games enthusiasts as there was very little these devices could do. This all changed as business embraced these new personal devices, as finished products became available and new software applications made them extremely useful. IBM played a major role in this change by giving credibility to personal computers and encouraging clone manufacturers and application software development.

The mobile phone market was also hardware led initially as miniaturisation of components allowed phones to become a convenient personal device. This also allowed the extension of mobile phones into computing as early smartphones incorporated a range of functions into a single device. In this respect, there has been a convergence between smartphones/tablets and PC/laptops as smartphones are now able to provide most of the functions previously only possible on a PC. On the flip side, PC/laptop usage leans towards communications and connectivity, something the mobile phone was built on.

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This could not have come about without the developments in worldwide networking and the connectivity of broadband & Wi-Fi which have eventually made “online” the main usage of personal devices. You could argue the introduction of Cloud Computing has reverted computing back to the mainframe model, with the Cloud providing the main processing power with mobile devices acting as the user access point. This is not unlike timesharing in the mainframe era, the difference being that today user interaction in real time is available due to the computing power delivered by both Cloud-based servers and personal devices and the rich communications network now available.

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7. THE PERSONAL DEVICE MARKET TODAY

We seem to have reached what Mark Weiser of Xerox PARC described as ‘’ – “The First Wave was many people per computer. The Second Wave was one person per computer. The Third Wave is many computers per person” (Nicholson, 2014, p.234 cited Lewis, 1994).

To conclude this study I thought it would be good to review the available online data on device volumes and usage and to test these with some primary research of my own. The results of this are shown in detail in Appendix 3 and summarised here.

The online literature on device sales and usage quotes an average ownership of 3.7 devices per person in 2016. In my questionnaire, I asked the question “Which of the following devices do you own/have access to?” This included Desktop PCs, Laptops, Mobile Phones and Tablets. Of the 71 respondents, the average device ownership turned out to be 4.8, which is higher than published figures suggest, but confirms what Mark Weiser predicted in the 1970’s. NUMBER OF DEVICES PER RESPONDENT 25

20

15

10 FREQUENCY

5

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 NUMBER OF DEVICES

Chart 1 Number of Devices per Respondent

In terms of device usage I was able to find some online figures listing the most popular uses for each device and my survey proved excellent for collecting this data. Chart 2 below shows that the online data sources were not complete and although there are notable differences in many of the percentages, I think my survey data agrees with the published usage patterns, but possibly shows how device usage continues to evolve into new areas.

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Chart 2 Device Usage

The final area I was keen to explore was the most and least favoured devices. The Gartner figures below show the sales of PCs, laptops, tablets and mobile phones ranging from 2015 through to the predictions for 2018. This confirms the decline in desktop PCs, flat performance in tablets and rising sales for both laptops and mobile phones.

Chart 3 Worldwide Device Sales

In my questionnaire, I asked “Of the devices you own/have access to, which is the device you use the most?” Followed by “Of the devices you own/have access to, which is the device you

41 use the least?” Both these questions had 71 respondents and the results (shown below) confirm the overall popularity of mobile phones and the rather surprising poor performance of tablets.

MOST COMMONLY USED DEVICE

3% 14%

4%

79%

DESKTOP PC LAPTOP TABLET MOBILE PHONE

Chart 4 Most Commonly Used Device

LEAST COMMONLY USED DEVICE

7%

24%

42%

27%

DESKTOP PC LAPTOP TABLET MOBILE PHONE

Chart 5 Least Commonly Used Device

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8. CONCLUSION

I introduced this study with Alan Kay’s vision for computing in 1972. It is quite incredible to think that, before even the existence of the personal computer, Kay managed to predict the path that computing would take, with incredible accuracy. From his vision of the Dynabook, to predicting that the PC would become primarily a communications device, Kay has helped transform the world of computing. Equally as important was Gordon Moore with his statement that came to be known as Moore’s Law. He suggested that “from 1980 onwards, the number of components it would be economical to put on a single chip would double every two years” (Nicholson, 2014, p.13 cited Moore, 1975), which is something that remains true to this day. This has enabled computing power to become something that is affordable to millions, which in turn created ongoing demand. In my introduction, I stated that I was going to address the weaknesses of the literature, which was the one-dimensional nature of it. Looking back now, I think the separate sections in Chapter 5 will give the reader an understanding of what has happened across the main device groups and other IT developments. This, along with Chapter 6, which breaks down the whole device story into timeframes, helps give the reader a further understanding by looking at what caused what and why. Conducting my questionnaire and analysing the results in Chapter 7 is another great benefit of the study. It provides the reader with a glimpse of how the device market has panned out over past years, along with an insight as to what is happening today, based on my figures and how these compare to the larger scale figures found online. I think it’s worth talking briefly about recent paths of computing, firstly with wearable technology. Apple were at the forefront of this with its iWatch, but wearables seem to have gone quiet ever since however, so it’s unlikely that they will be the foundations of future computing. The human-device interface is developing beyond the GUI and software Apps are so smart that they can just be downloaded and used by anybody. There is a focus on connecting existing non-communication products that are part of daily life, to a smartphone or tablet via an App, mainly to improve the quality of life. An example of this is Hive, an innovation from British Gas that lets you control certain technology, such as heating and hot water, from your smartphone or tablet. I expect this to be the path that computing follows, with perhaps one day, all devices being able to talk to each other. Finishing up, my study started off with 2 main devices - the PC and the mobile phone. To some extent, both these devices have converged to become multi-functional. The tablet was supposed to be the true convergence of the two, threatening to push both the PC and the mobile into the distance, but as sales suggest, this has not been the case. In the foreseeable future I would expect these 2 main devices to remain at the forefront of the personal computing world.

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Bibliography

Publications: Ceruzzi, P. (2012). Computing. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hills, A. (2011). Wi-Fi and the Bad Boys of Radio. 1st ed. Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing. Van Dijck, J. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity. 1st ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Sutton, A. and Linge, N. (2015). 30 Years of Mobile Phones in the UK. 1st ed. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing. Nicholson, M. (2014). When Computing Got Personal. 1st ed. Bristol: Matt Publishing. Ruparelia, N. (2016). Cloud Computing. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Online Sources: uSwitch. (2017). Broadband history. [online] Available at: https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/guides/broadband_history/ [Accessed: 11/04/17] Youde, K. (2010). Broadband: The first decade [online] Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/broadband-the-first- decade-1929515.html [Accessed: 11/04/17] Wood, B. (2014). The Evolution of WiFi [online] Available at: http://purple.ai/history-wifi/ [Accessed: 11/04/17] Wireless History Foundation. (2016). Wireless History Timeline [online] Available at: http://wirelesshistoryfoundation.org/wireless-history-project/wireless-history-timeline [Accessed: 11/04/17] phonehistory.co.uk. (2016). The Timeline of Mobile Phones [online] Available at: http://phonehistory.co.uk/mobile-phones-timeline.html [Accessed: 11/04/17] Mobile Phone History. (2016). Mobile Phones – Timeline [online] Available at: http://mobilephonehistory.co.uk/history/time_line.php [Accessed: 11/04/17] Brookes, T. (2012). A Brief History of Mobile Phones [online] Available at: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/history-mobile-phones/ [Accessed: 11/04/17]

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McLellan, C. (2014). Timeline of Tablets [online] Available at: http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-history-of-tablet-computers-a-timeline/ [Accessed: 11/04/17] Zimmermann, K. (2012). Internet History Timeline [online] Available at: http://www.livescience.com/20727-internet-history.html [Accessed: 11/04/17] Briard. (2015). A Brief History of Personal Computers [online] Available at: https://www.techsupportalert.com/history-of-personal-computers.htm [Accessed: 11/04/17] Trueman, C. (2015). The Personal Computer [online] Available at: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/inventions-and-discoveries-of-the-twentieth- century/the-personal-computer/ [Accessed: 11/04/17] Knight, D. (2014). Personal Computer History: The First 25 Years [online] Available at: http://lowendmac.com/2014/personal-computer-history-the-first-25-years/ [Accessed: 11/04/17] History.com. (2011). Invention of the PC [online] Available at: http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/invention-of-the-pc [Accessed: 11/04/17] Reimer, J. (2005). 30 Years of Personal Computer Market Share Figures [online] Available at: https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/ [Accessed: 11/04/17] HSA Z. (2015). Top 10 Uses of Smartphones [online] Available at: http://top10-now.com/2015/12/25/top-10-uses-of-smartphones/ [Accessed: 11/04/17] Marketing Charts. (2014). Daily Activities on Smartphones and Tablets [online] Available at: http://www.marketingcharts.com/online/top-daily-activities-on-smartphones-and-tablets- 41027/attachment/exacttarget-daily-activities-smartphones-tablets-feb2014/ [Accessed: 11/04/17] Bennett, M. (2007). What is the Primary Use of Your ? [online] Available at: https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/what-is-the-primary-use-of-your-home- computer-233879/ [Accessed: 11/04/17] Ramey, K. (2012). 10 Uses of Technology in Our Daily Life [online] Available at: http://www.useoftechnology.com/technology-today-tomorrow/ [Accessed: 11/04/17]

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Gartner. (2016). 2016 Sales of All Devices [online] Available at: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3270418 [Accessed: 11/04/17] Gartner. (2016). 2016 Global Sales of Smartphones [online] Available at: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3323017 [Accessed: 11/04/17] Gartner. (2014). Worldwide Tablet Sales 2013 over 2012 [online] Available at: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2674215 [Accessed: 11/04/17] Anderson, M. (2015). Technology Device Ownership: 2015. [online] Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/29/technology-device-ownership-2015/ [Accessed: 11/04/17] Guardian. (2015). Online all the time – average British household owns 7.4 internet devices. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/09/online-all-the-time-average- british-household-owns-74-internet-devices [Accessed: 11/04/17] Buckle, C. (2016). Digital consumers own 3.64 connected devices. [online] Available at: http://blog.globalwebindex.net/chart-of-the-day/digital-consumers-own-3-64-connected- devices/ [Accessed: 11/04/17] ONS. (2013). 2011 Census. [online] Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populat ionestimates/bulletins/populationandhouseholdestimatesfortheunitedkingdom/2011-03-21 [Accessed: 11/04/17]

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Appendices

Appendix 1 Device Timeline

Timeline of device and other relevant IT developments referred to in the study DATE PC/Laptop Mobile Phone, Smart Other relevant IT Phone/Tablet developments: Operating Systems Application Software Internet & World Wide Web Broadband & Wi-Fi Cloud Computing Social Media 1955 250 computers in use worldwide – mainframes only 1975 First personal computer – Altair In 1973 Dr Martin Cooper of Micro-soft founded in April: writes 8800 based on Intel 8080 Motorola made the world’s first BASIC compiler for Altair (BASIC microprocessor. phone call in New York on a written in 1964). MOS technology launches 6502 prototype DynaTAC phone. Telenet starts operation as first microprocessor for $25. Around same time Xerox PARC public packet-switching network – develop prototype Alto “tablet” first commercial ISP. with A4 screen providing WYSIWYG display. 1976 Jobs & Wozniak form Apple in Xerox PARC in Palo Alto develop April and launch based on first GUI and LAN used with Alto MOS 6502 microprocessor. tablet. Shugart introduce 5.25 inch Queen Elizabeth II sends her floppy disc drive. first email! Altair 8800 sales exceed 10,000 1977 Apple II introduced. Digital Research released CP/M Radio Shack TRS-80 & opsys (precursor of MS DOS) Commodore Pet introduced and which ran most PCs. used mainly for gaming. ARPANET scientific & military network (initiated in 1969) connects about 60 computers or terminals worldwide. 1978 Intel introduces 8086 VisiCalc spreadsheet software. microprocessor. Wordstar word processing software 1979 Xerox share its technology with World’s first cellular telephone Vulcan database software Apple & make considerable service started in Japan for (predecessor of dBase II) investment in company. carphones only. Intel release 8088 microprocessor. Motorola release 68000 microprocessor. 1980 1m personal computers in use worldwide 1980 Commodore VIC-20 & Sinclair Flight Simulator game released for ZX80 introduced. Primary focus Apple II. of these microcomputers was on Xerox publish Ethernet gaming. specification – becomes industry Epson introduces MX-80 dot standard for creating local area matrix . networks. Microsoft launches Xenix server O/S based on . 1981 IBM PC introduced. First portable Nordic Mobile Telephone network Microsoft writes PCDOS for IBM PC - . First laptop – launched in Sweden, Denmark, and launches MS DOS itself for Epson HX-20 Norway & Finland. Also exported to IBM compatibles. Saudi Arabia. ARPANET connects 200 computers.

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Supercalc spreadsheet released. 1982 Sinclair launches ZX Spectrum GSM (Groupe Special Mobile) introduces Ethernet cards microcomputer in UK for £125. working group formed to develop for IBM PC & compatibles. BBC Microcomputer launched. pan-European standard mobile Novell introduce Netware O/S Intel announces 80286 phone network by 1991. which converts PC to a network microprocessor. file server. Commodore Vic-20 sells 600,000 Early dial-up operate at units. 1,200 bits per second. Commodore 64 introduced with Microsoft agrees to write 64kb RAM. applications for Apple Macintosh which has its own proprietary O/S. 1983 10m PCs in use in USA alone 1983 Commodore 64 sells 2m units. Motorola introduces the DynaTAC Lotus 123 Word Apple launches high spec LISA PC mobile telephone nicknamed “the Processor/Spreadsheet/Database with its first GUI based on Xerox brick”. First truly “mobile” becomes available. technology. radiotelephone. 1.0 released. Worldwide launch of the IBM PC. First commercial cellular system Microsoft start its Applications begins operating in Chicago, closely Division to develop application followed by second one in software to ensure success of its Baltimore/Washington area. This O/S platform. First product is was analogue cellular technology Multiplan spreadsheet. Announce now known as 1G. plans for Windows GUI O/S. McKinsey & Co consultants Microsoft Word becomes available estimate potential size of mobile along with Microsoft mouse. telephone market by end of ARPANET defines protocols for millennium to be no greater than packet switching networks called 900,000 users. At the turn of the TCP/IP. millennium 900,000 handsets are DNS (Domain Name System) being sold every 3 days. introduces familiar .gov, .org, .net Cellnet and Vodafone granted system for naming websites. licences to provide national cellular radio networks in UK. 1984 Apple Macintosh launched for Cellular Telecommunications $2,495 which includes GUI, Industry Association is founded. mouse and own proprietary operating system. CPC microcomputer launched. No software was available to use IBM introduces the AT based on multi-tasking capability of the 16 bit Intel 80286 processor 80286. which offered multi-tasking capability. 1985 30m personal computers in use worldwide; 340,000 cell phone subscribers 1985 Apple Macintosh with Aldus Cellnet & Vodafone opened for Microsoft introduces Windows. Pagemaker desk top publishing business. also includes software & Apple LaserWriter French Radiocom 2000 mobile AppleTalk personal network, printer provides massive boost to telephone service launched in cables & connectors for up to 32 Apple sales. Paris. PCs connected to a file server (PC) Deskpro IBM compatible Shoulder phones emerged which – however not Ethernet launched. required 20kg of batteries. compatible. Intel 80386 microprocessor Most mobile phones were The Internet of TCP/IP networks announced. mounted in cars. connects 2,000 host computers. AOL founded to provide dial-up access to bulletin boards & online databases. Symbolics.com becomes first registered website.

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1986 /laptop IBM PC Germany’s Netz-C mobile network Internet connects 30,000 host compatible. launched. computers. Amstrad introduces PC1512 IBM Aldus Pagemaker available for IBM compatible for £399. PC compatibles. 386 available. 1987 One millionth cellular subscriber in US 1987 Apple sells its 1 millionth Mac IBM PS/2 runs OS/2 operating and launches Mac II at $5,000. system developed by Microsoft. IBM P/S2 range introduced based Microsoft releases Windows 2, on Intel 80386 microprocessor which looked lot like the Apple with starting price of $1,695. GUI, along with Word & Excel for Windows. National Science Foundation (NSF) in US constructs high-speed backbone by which local and regional networks could connect to each other at T1 speeds = 1.5Mbps. Cisco ships its first Router for high speed data transfer across the Internet. 1988 Apple turnover exceeds $4bn. First Internet worm infects about Steve Jobs new NeXT computer is 6,000 Unix computers. demonstrated starting at $6,500. Windows dominant PC O/S shipping 50,000 copies per month. Microsoft turnover hits £800m. 1989 Intel launches 80486 Motorola MicroTAC is introduced – MS DOS sales hits 30m copies. microprocessor. the smallest and lightest mobile yet Microsoft Office for Macintosh released at at 12.3 ounces. released. $5,799. Microsoft Word for Windows 1.0 announced. The World is first commercial provider of Internet access in US. 1989 54m PCs in use in USA 1990 Cellular subscribers passes 5m 1990 ARPANET is closed down and replaced by consortium of commercial providers. Windows 3.0 released & ships 100,000 copies in first 2 weeks. Microsoft Office 1.0 for Windows includes Word, Excel & Powerpoint. First webpage sent across the Internet. 1991 Apple Powerbook released. GSM 2G digital network first Tim Berners-Lee writes available in Finland with first call specification for WorldWideWeb. made using Nokia 6050 car phone. Kernel for O/S released by Motorola launch 3200, the world’s Linus Torvalds. first GSM hand-portable mobile phone. 1992 Cellular subscribers passes 10m 1992 Head of Apple describes vision of IBM introduce Thinkpad range of Windows 3.1 shipped. a “personal digital assistant” tablet computers. Demon becomes first Internet device. Vodafone launch first UK GSM service provider in UK. network (2G). NSF backbone reaches T3 – First GSM mobile call made on 45Mbps. Orbitel 901 in UK. I millionth host connected to World’s first commercial text Internet and is estimated at message is sent by employees of doubling every year. CMG and received on Orbitel 901.

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Nokia becomes world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer.

1993 Apple Mac reaches 10m sold. IBM Simon is first Smart phone Microsoft launches Windows NT Intel Pentium processor offering a calendar, address book, server O/S. launched. calculator, email, faxing service and Windows & Macintosh versions of IBM announce massive losses. games. Mosaic web browser released. Apple announce Newton PDA at Estimated that 50 web servers $700 as first “tablet” computer akin were running at start of year & to Alan Kay’s Dynabook. 500 at end. One 2 One launches as first GSM 600 websites in use. all-digital network in the world Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) using Mercury phones. Digital established for reliable cellular networks are known as 2G. transmission via Internet in conjunction with TCP. 1994 Apple launches the Power Nokia introduce choice of Linux 1.0 distribution released. Macintosh at $1,800. on Nokia 2110. First Internet café opens in Hutchison Telecom launch UK London. Orange network. W3C consortium established to SMS (short message service) standardise Internet protocols. launched enabling texts to be Estimated 1,500 web servers up & exchanged between mobile running. phones. Netscape Navigator web browser released. Yahoo! founded funding its website indexing site with advertisements. Estimated that over 90% of desktop computers were running MSDOS or Windows & increasing numbers being networked using Windows NT. 1995 33.8m wireless subscribers = 13% of US population. UK mobile phone usage = 7% of population. 1995 Windows 95 shipped. 56kbps dial-up modems available. Internet Explorer 1.0 launched. World Wide Web in widespread use for commercial transactions due to SSL (secure socket layer) in Netscape. Amazon website goes live. e-Bay website goes live. Sun announce Java programming language. 1996 Palm Pilot introduced as “personal digital assistant” – start of pocket- sized personal computing. Vodafone introduce first prepaid, non-contract phone service. 1997 Apple makes IE its default Ericsson introduce customisable AOL is leading ISP connecting browser. panel around keyboard. more than 30 million PCs to the One 2 One introduce first digital Internet. pay-as-you-go service with Mercury Emergence of Web Log (blog) phone. websites to simplify Internet S10 was first phone to content publishing. offer a colour screen, but with only Wi-Fi created under Standard 4 colours. 802.11 which is a way of getting Nokia introduce Snake game for broadband internet to a device mobile phone use and without using wires. customisable ringtones become available. 1998 Apple introduces the iMac from Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia & Windows 98 launched with $1,299. announce they will integrated IE. 50

develop for wireless data Google launched along with range exchange between mobile of other Internet search engines phones/handheld computers and by which users could find useful stationary computers. websites. First “bucket” of minutes plan is offered. Nokia introduce interchangeable phone fascias. More mobile phones sold worldwide than cars and PCs combined. 1999 Apple introduce Wi-Fi slot known First mobiles able to send email The release of wireless Routers as “” on its range and use the web. sparks the beginning of and other PC manufacturers Nokia 7110 was first such WAP widespread Wi-Fi adoption in follow suit. (Wireless Application Protocol) homes for internet access. phone which was able to browse Salesforce.com offers the Internet. software applications via a simple GPS satellite navigation becomes website – commercial Cloud available on Benefon mobile Computing is born. phone. Motorola introduce Timeport the world’s first triband phone which worked around the world. UK supermarket price war drops PAYG phones to £39.99. 2000 Wireless subscribership in America reaches 100m = 38% of population. Mobile phone ownership in UK market reaches 73% of population. 2000 Microsoft announces prototype Microsoft releases Windows 2000. Pocket PC tablet. Digital wireless users outnumber First camera phone introduced in analogue subscribers with ISPs. Japan –Sharp J-SH04. Telewest launch Broadband 6.2 bn text messages sent in UK, connectivity in the UK allowing rising to 155 bn per annum at its cabled network to transmit peak. telephone and internet traffic GPRS (General Packet Radio simultaneously. Max speed is 512 Service) becomes available kbps, 10 times faster than dial-up. extending GSM protocol to Home-based routers available for effective mobile data comms. PC-Internet connectivity. 2001 Apple launches iPod music player. Microsoft releases Windows XP. Average wireless consumer uses Only 9% of UK homes have mobile phone for 320 minutes per broadband compared with 39% in month. Germany and 33% in Sweden. Mitsubishi Trium Eclipse become Napster, the free music-sharing first full colour display phone in UK. site with 26m users worldwide, NTT DpCoMo launch world’s first closes following legal action. 3G network which transformed Apple launches iTunes. mobile phone usage with full broadband internet access. 2002 Microsoft demonstrate its first Only 200,000 broadband users in tablet PC in Las Vegas launch. UK. Camera phones first introduced to Amazon Web Services provides a US market. suite of cloud-based services T Mobile (formerly One 2 One) including storage, computation introduce UK’s first picture and human intelligence. messaging service (MMS). Nokia 7650 becomes Europe’s first camera phone. Handspring Treo combines personal organiser and cellphone in single handheld device. 2003 Laptop computers replacing Hutchison Telecom launch Three Apple launches iTunes Store desktops for many users as brand as UK’s first 3G service. selling songs for 99 cents. computing on the move grows.

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Intel introduce Wi-Fi Blackberry smartphone combines Microsoft has 94 of internet circuits which provide embedded mobile telephone, texting, email, browser market. Wi-Fi capability. internet faxing & web browsing in a Standard 802.11g provides faster “Dongles” become available to single device. speeds and greater distance provide laptop Internet access. Nokia 1100 released which will coverage for Wi-Fi. become world’s largest selling Broadband is defined as having mobile phone at 250m units. speeds of at least 500kbps. 1Mbps ADSL is available to more than 60% of British homes. Myspace social networking website for friends launches. Microsoft releases 2003 which for a time becomes the main mobile O/S. 2004 IBM sells PC manufacturing Massive growth in data cards Napster re-opens as chargeable business to Lenovo of China. within mobile phones to handle service. data interchange. Mack Zuckerberg launches Facebook social networking website initially limited to fellow Harvard students. Mozilla unveil Firefox browser.

2005 Subscribers reach 208 m = 69% of US population 2005 Sony Ericsson release “Walkman” Wi-Fi chipset shipments reach phone combining music player. 100m annually. 2Mbps broadband launches. Launch of YouTube. 2006 Apple announces iMac & 13m broadband users in UK. MacBook Pro machines based on Virgin Media merges with Intel processors. Telewest, becoming sole cable broadband provider in UK. Twitter launches aimed primarily at being used on limited keyboard and smaller screens of mobile devices. Amazon releases its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) which provides online computing resources for rent. 2007 Apple iPhone released at $499 and Microsoft releases Windows Vista. ships 1.4 m in first year. BBC launches iPlayer. 2008 iTunes Application Store and Virgin Media introduces 50Mbps Android Market opens. broadband in UK. Facebook becomes recognised leader in social networking websites. Spotify launches in the UK giving access to free songs. 2009 Subscribers reach 285 m = 91% of US population 2009 LTE introduce first 4G network in 1 billionth Wi-Fi chipset sold. Scandinavia, marking the switch to Microsoft releases . native IP networks, bringing mobile Standard 802.11n increases Wi-Fi Internet more in-line with wired speed and coverage even further. connections. 50% of UK households are connected to broadband. 40th anniversary of Internet. Google starts to offer browser- based applications through services such as Google Apps. 2010 First 4G handset is introduced. Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide reach Apple launch iPad which quickly 1m. dominates tablet market. 20m broadband users in UK.

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Facebook reaches 400 million active users. 2012 EE (Orange & T-Mobile) becomes Standard 801.11ac allowed Wi-Fi first UK 4G network provider. to use both 2.4 and 5Ghz Microsoft launch range of frequencies to cope with increased tablets, but Samsung are main usage. competitor to iPad. 2013 Vodafone and Three launch 4G 4G focus is on data and provides a networks in UK. fully mobile supplement to the cable-based broadband network. 2014 Top 5 smartphone manufacturers are Samsung 24.7%, Apple 15.4%, Lenovo 6.5%, Huawei (HTC) 5.5% and LG 4.6%. 2015 61% of UK adults own a Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide reach Smartphone. 70m. Of mobile O/S market, Microsoft 90% of UK population have has 2.5%, Apple has 18% and Internet access. Android (opensource & owned by Google) has 79%.

2016 PC/laptop sales worldwide slow Smartphone sales hit 1,943m with to 228m units. Tablet sales at annual growth at between 7 – 15%. 245m exceed this number for Combined Smartphone & Tablet first time. sales are over 9 times that of PCs/Laptops.

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Appendix 2 Analysis Timeline Comparing the three separate sections of PC/Laptops, Mobile Phones/Tablets and other relevant IT developments to define the interrelationships and what caused what.

Microprocessor Era Packaged products Mobiles arrive; PCs dip Internet Era arrives Mobile data & Data Smartphones & Tablets 1975-1982 1983-1988 1989-1991 1992-2000 connectivity rule 2001-2006 2007-2016 PC/Laptops Personal computers Commodore 64 and World recession in late Consistent growth Laptops are replacing PC and Laptop sales consist of kits or non- IBM PC and clones drive 80s and early 90s slows returns based on PC desktop PCs as mobile show a slight increase self-contained units. massive growth in the business growth for compatible sales plus computing grows. PC to 2010, but decline Aimed at hobbyists and personal computer personal computers. PC Apple Mac. Sales hit growth overall is thereafter. Prices level gaming. Very limited sales. Unit sales grow connectivity is limited 140m in 2000. Business relatively flat. out although computing market. from 1m to 20m per to business LANs only. use grows, but main power keeps increasing. annum. increase is due to home use, reflecting falling price and rising computing power of PCs. Mobile Phones/Tablets Mobile are Motorola release first 2G digital mobile SMS, Digital Organisers, GPS and cameras Apple iPhone defines car-based only. Tablets real mobile phone - networks, smaller, early Smart Phones and enhance the usefulness Smart phones of the are either science DynaTAC (The Brick). more powerful Tablets all contribute to of early Smart phones. future. 4G networks fiction or expensive First 1G cellular handsets along with the growth in mobile WAP improves Internet designed totally for prototypes. networks developed in falling prices opens device usage. The use. Image messaging data become available. most Western mass consumer market availability of Bluetooth and 3G networks drive Smart phones and countries. 1m cellular for mobile phones. connectivity and mobile data connectivity from Tablets gradually dwarf subscribers. Subscribers pass 5m. Web access fuel this mobiles. PC sales. growth. Other IT Developments CP/M and DOS emerge Emergence of GUIs and Early GUI-based O/S’s World Wide Web with Broadband availability Broadband & Wi-Fi as 2 main operating business applications and applications lack its browsers and search provides improved speeds and coverage systems which games feed the demand for ease-of-use in a mixed engines drive Internet connectivity and data increase. Connectivity and application personal computers in DOS/Windows market. access. Windows 3.1 interchange from from anywhere is the developers can target. the workplace. Lotus Office 1.0 becomes and its successors are homes and Wi-Fi norm and Social Media First networks and 123, PageMaker and available and World much more user- increases mobile replaces email, phone network protocols Microsoft’s Applications Wide Web is born, but friendly, although dial- connectivity. Cloud calls & texts as emerge. Early business Division are key. WORD still no widespread PC up connectivity limits services and Social preferred software – VisiCalc – is v1.0 becomes available. connectivity apart from access speeds and data Media encourage communication tool for a success. business LANs. transmission. connected use. younger generation.

Appendix 3 Analysis of the Personal Device Market today Firstly, looking at the average ownership of devices, an article from The Guardian newspaper suggests that the “average British household owns 7.4 internet devices” (Guardian, 2015). This is based on the same devices that I have included in my study, however this is of course looking at households and not individuals, meaning that this number is the combination of, on average, 2.3 people (ONS, 2013). This would mean that the number of devices per person in 2015 was 3.7 in the UK.

Comparing this to an article from Global Web Index which states: “on average, the typical digital consumer now owns 3.64 connected devices” (Buckle, 2016). This articles does include other types of devices that aren’t included in my study, however it is interesting that the number appears to be very similar, even being a year later. The other difference is the location, with this article surveying a worldwide audience, yet it’s still likely to be a smaller sample size than The Guardian newspaper.

For my questionnaire, I asked the question “Which of the following devices do you own/have access to?” This was including Desktop PCs, Laptops, Mobile Phones and Tablets.

Of the 71 respondents, the average device ownership turned out to be 4.8. This is a fairly large increase, which you would expect comparing to previous years. Of course, my data will not be as accurate as that of the above sources, as they have surveyed a much larger audience, for example The Guardian surveyed an audience of 2,090, meaning they will see much less freak numbers than myself.

Breaking the results down a little further, 4 is the most common frequency of devices, with 23 respondents having access to this number. This was closely followed by 5 and 3 respectively, so you can see why the average turns out to be 4.8. There were a few extreme numbers, with one respondent totalling 17 devices, and another 13.

You can see the full graph shown below as Chart 6.

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NUMBER OF DEVICES PER RESPONDENT 25

20

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10 FREQUENCY

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0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 NUMBER OF DEVICES

Chart 6 Number of Devices per Respondent

The next area to look at is device usage, or what people use their devices for. Firstly, looking at PCs and laptops, a forum on CNET suggests that the main use of a home computer is gaming, followed by Internet browsing, music, applications, photo & video editing, programming, video and finally other (Bennett, 2007). The downside of this is there are no figures to match this ranking. The other downside is the year, as this discussion took place in 2007, meaning its now not going to be the most reliable. From spending some time looking at other articles, it does still appear however, that gaming is the most popular use of a PC or laptop in the home.

Looking next at mobile phones and tablets, a graph on the Marketing Charts website suggests that the main uses of smartphones are email (91%), texting (90%), Internet browsing (76%), social media (75%), news (62%), gaming (57%), music (46%), reading (43%) and finally watching videos (30%) (Marketing Charts, 2014). The advantage here is that the list is backed up with figures, with the percentages representing the number of people surveyed who perform the tasks listed at least once per day. The use of tablets doesn’t differ hugely, with the main uses being Internet browsing (70%), email (69%), social media (64%), gaming (58%), reading (57%), news (52%), watching videos (40%), music (36%) and finally texting (23%) (Marketing Charts, 2014). It’s interesting to see that texting is almost the highest figure for smartphones, while being the lowest figure for tablets. The only thing to note with this data is that it is taken from the US, so only represents one country. It also dates back to 2014, so may not be entirely accurate today.

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Chart 7 Daily Activities on Smartphones and Tablets

The question asked in my questionnaire was “Of the devices you own/have access to, what do you use them for?” Again, this question returned 71 respondents.

Firstly, analysing desktop PCs, the main use was Internet browsing, with 35% of people saying they used their PC for it. This was closely followed by personal admin (Internet banking, insurance etc.) on 34%. The lowest use was navigation on 4%, as you would expect for a non-portable device. Interestingly, gaming is only at 18%, being one of the lowest uses, compared to the forum on CNET, where it was ranked the highest. Internet browsing does coincide with the forum however. The highest use of Laptops was again Internet browsing, this time with 74% of people choosing it. This was followed by email on 65% and online shopping on 63%. The lowest use turned out to be navigation again on 14%, this was followed by gaming on 18%, which again does not match the forum on CNET.

Looking next at mobile phones, the highest use was tied between navigation and social media, both on 92%. This was closely followed by Internet browsing on 90% and email on 88%. This is the antithesis of what is stated in the graph by Marketing Charts, which ranks navigation as the lowest use. The lowest use in my questionnaire was actually paid work/business, which you would expect as most companies do not encourage phone use. The highest use for tablets was Internet browsing on 61%, which follows the trend. This was followed by online shopping on 55% and social media on 48%. These results match that of the graph by Marketing Charts, which ranks Internet browsing and social media as two very high uses.

You can see my full results table shown below as Chart 8.

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Chart 8 Device Usage

The final area to look at is the most and least favoured devices. An article by Gartner shows the sales of PCs, laptops, tablets and mobile phones ranging from 2015 through to the predictions for 2018. As mentioned in Chapters 5 & 6, desktop PCs have been on the decline since 2010. The article confirms this with sales in 2015 being 244 million, 2016 being 228 million, 2017 being 223 million and predicts 2018 sales to be 216 million (Gartner, 2016). Interestingly, very light and portable laptops such as Microsoft’s and Apple’s MacBook Air seem to be rising, with sales showing 45 million in 2015, 57 million in 2016, 73 million in 2017 and are predicted to be 90 million in 2018 (Gartner, 2016). Tablet sales are also interesting, as the article states that they have been a non-mover, with sales in 2015 being 195 million, 2016 and 2017 both being 188 million and then predicting 194 million in 2018 (Gartner, 2016). Mobile phones blow all other sales out of the water, and are continuing to rise according to the article, with sales reaching 1,917 million in 2015, 1,943 million in 2016, 1,983 million in 2017 and are predicted to reach 2,022 million by 2018 (Gartner, 2016).

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Chart 9 Worldwide Device Sales

In my questionnaire, I asked “Of the devices you own/have access to, which is the device you use the most?” Followed by “Of the devices you own/have access to, which is the device you use the least?” Both these questions had 71 respondents.

Looking firstly at the device people use the most, the mobile phone won by a landslide, with 56 out of the 71 respondents saying they use their phone the most, which is 79%. This isn’t a surprising result, as the article by Gartner shows that mobile phone sales are predicted to reach 2 billion in 2018, ten times the amount of the next highest device. Interestingly, the tablet was only chosen by 3 out of 71 respondents, which turns out to be 4%. I expected a much higher figure here.

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You can see the full chart shown below as Chart 10.

MOST COMMONLY USED DEVICE

3% 14%

4%

79%

DESKTOP PC LAPTOP TABLET MOBILE PHONE

Chart 10 Most Commonly Used Device

Onto the least used device. The tablet won this feat, which is something I did not expect at all. 30 out of the 71 respondents said that they use their tablet the least, which is 42%. The next least used device was the laptop on 19 respondents (27%) followed closely by the desktop PC on 17 respondents (24%). The laptop being the second least used device is also a shock to me, as it was the second highest figure for the most used device. I expected the desktop PC to be higher than the laptop, as it had a very low figure for most used device. There is no surprise that the mobile phone comes last in this category, being the highest used device.

You can see the full chart shown below as Chart 11.

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LEAST COMMONLY USED DEVICE

7%

24%

42%

27%

DESKTOP PC LAPTOP TABLET MOBILE PHONE

Chart 11 Least Commonly Used Device

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Appendix 4 Questionnaire Which of the following devices do you own/have access to? Please put a number in the appropriate box. Desktop PC Laptop Mobile Phone Tablet

Of the devices you own/have access to, what do you use them for? Please put a tick in all the necessary boxes. Desktop PC Laptop Mobile Phone Tablet

Personal Admin Paid Work/Business Online Shopping Email Internet Browsing Social Media Games Photography/Video Navigation

Of the devices you own/have access to, which is the device you use the most? Please put a tick in the appropriate box. Desktop PC Laptop Mobile Phone Tablet

Of the devices you own/have access to, which is the device you use the least? Please put a tick in the appropriate box. Desktop PC Laptop Mobile Phone Tablet

Submission of a completed questionnaire is taken as consent.

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