History TechnologyMarchesOn / CellPhones

* In countries where mobile plan doesn't include unlimited call and text, affordable data package and ubiquitous [=WiFi=] means it's cheaper to just use third-party call & messaging apps that use internet connection. Plain call and text interoperability becomes less relevant when in some countries phones comes preloaded with the popular messaging apps and over 90% of the population use them. Aside from offering more features, these apps also eliminate the cost segmentation of international call and text, since everything are usually free regardless of the sender and recipient location. People working or living in buildings without good tower coverage but usable [=WiFi=] get to stay connected, and even travelling internationally just require buying a local SIM or a portable [=MiFi=] for cheap data package, without the hassle of notifying contacts on which number is reachable. Even if someone doesn't deliberately use a third-party app, by default both stock iMessage in iPhones and Messages in Android will send messages through the internet if the recipient also have the corresponding app instead of using the operator's SMS gateway. Right now iPhones and Android use different standards, but once iMessage gain support for RCS, both Android and iPhones will text each other through internet instead of SMS protocol.

* Many people have a similar reaction to children with cell phones, believing them spoiled, not realizing that a phone lets them keep in touch with their parents (and vice versa), call the emergency services wherever they are, and talk to their friends without tying up the house phone. They're also essentially the modern version of handhelds such as the UsefulNotes/GameBoy and UsefulNotes/NintendoDS (except that [[AllegedlyFreeGame microtransactions]] let kids bleed their parents' bank accounts dry rapidly, rather than in chunks for each new game, and give away personal information).

** Ringtones themselves went from simplistic monophonic, initially identical on all devices of the same model due to the very limited storage, then comes with several preloaded tones, maybe even composable on the phone itself. More powerful CPU and larger storage then allow polyphonic that mimics musical instruments, the implementation is usually similar to, or even plain UsefulNotes/{{MIDI}}. The limitation of these formats means there's a market for creative tones that embrace the format and set the phone owner apart from factory defaults. Current truetones are just plain audio recordings, and personalizing ringtones was so desirable the industry made billions both by licensing existing music or producing dedicated ringtones. Today having your phone ringing loudly in public is considered gaudy and most will just use a relatively muted preloaded tone, if not silencing it entirely. The flash LED and screen can light up too so the owner still notices a call even when it's impossible or hard to hear any ringtone without carrying it everywhere to feel the vibration.

* ''Film/CasinoRoyale2006'': The presence of mobile phones were probably intended to show how gadgets aren't necessary in the modern world. They looked terrific at the time (remember that GPS?) but amusingly, in the smartphone era, they all now look terribly out of date, which is partly why ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'' would reintroduce Q and the Q department's gadgets to the series.

* In the comic book anthology [[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/423154.The_Big_Book_of_Losers "The Big Book of Losers"]], there is a chapter that discuses the "video phone," which says that telecommunications companies have wasted "millions, if not billions" of dollars to allow people to see each other while talking on the phone, only for no one to adopt the technology outside of business teleconferences, and also mentions that there may negative side-effects with children seeing a loved one through a screen, and that perverts may use the technology to flash people from anywhere in the world. This argument may have made sense at the time the comic book was published (1997), but today (2022), with the emergence of both broadband internet and LTE cellular technology allowing faster connections, people casually use services like FaceTime and WhatsApp to see each other while talking with one another, and other services like Skype, or, especially during the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, Zoom, allow regular people to conduct business with one another from the comfort of their homes.

* Website/CollegeHumor is on this trope very extensively:

* In the final [[StoryArc arc]] of the ''Anime/{{Patlabor}}'' manga (written in the late '80s - early '90s, set in the late '90s - early 2000s) the bad guys [[spoiler:attack the police station where the protagonists are stationed during a hurricane to force a Griffon - Ingram match]]. To prevent anybody from interfering, they [[spoiler:blow up the bridges leading to the station and wreck any landline phones and radios they can find (including a car phone) so the protagonists can't call for help]]. Considering how common cell phones were in the early 2000s... Yeah.

* In countries where mobile plan doesn't include unlimited call and text, affordable data package and ubiquitous [=WiFi=] means it's cheaper to just use third-party call & messaging apps that use internet connection. Plain call and text interoperability becomes less relevant when in some countries phones comes preloaded with the popular messaging apps and over 90% of the population use them. Aside from offering more features, these apps also eliminate the cost segmentation of international call and text, since everything are usually free regardless of the sender and recipient location. People working or living in buildings without good tower coverage but usable [=WiFi=] get to stay connected, and even travelling internationally just require buying a local SIM or a portable [=MiFi=] for cheap data package, without the hassle of notifying contacts on which number is reachable. Even if someone doesn't deliberately use a third-party app, by default both stock iMessage in iPhones and Messages in Android will send messages through the internet if the recipient also have the corresponding app instead of using the operator's SMS gateway.

* For the most part the actual [[http://www.oldatheart.co.uk/old-phone-4.jpg telephone dial]] became obsolete by the 1980s, but the term 'dialing' [[ArtifactTitle survives]].