We tell you the story of the IBM Simon, the very first multitasking phone with touch screen, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary

On August 16, 1994, the American company IBM marketed the ancestor of the smartphone, the first phone in history with a touch screen and offering multiple applications (messages, calendar, calculator, etc.). Its name: Simon.

A phone with messages, calculator, calendar, documents, all with a touch screen: today, it’s obvious, but the very first device to offer all these features is celebrating its 30th anniversary. The IBM Simon was marketed from August 16, 1994. Its name is a nod to the game “Simon Says”, the equivalent of “Simon says” in English, for a phone that can do everything you ask of it. An innovation that has not necessarily remained in the memories, while this phone is considered the ancestor of the smartphone.

It is a black plastic case: 20 centimeters long, six wide, about as thick as a book. In the center, it has a monochrome touch screen, all in length, with a stylus to use it. Once turned on, the IBM Simon offers many applications summarized by Bruno Salgues, writer and former teacher at Mines Télécom: “First, it was used to make calls, which is the minimum you expect from a telephone, but above all, thanks to its touch screen, it could be used as a rudimentary word processor, calculator, diary, sending messages and it could also send faxes.”

The fax machine was the particularly fashionable means of communication at the time, in the 1990s. In addition, the IBM Simon also allowed you to play games, map a route, and its particularity was that it was light. It weighed 500 grams, all the same, but that was half as much as its competitors.

“It’s the ancestor of the smartphone, for sure. There was no product closer to the smartphone in concept before the IBM Simon.”says Nicolas Lellouche, a specialist in new technologies for the Numerama website. However, the phone may be innovative, but the journalist points out that it did not sell well: “It was not a huge success. Firstly, because it was very expensive, around 1 000 dollars. Today that’s the price of a high-end smartphone and it doesn’t bother anyone, but at the time, there was no real need.” Nicolas Lellouche recalls that “most people” had not then “no cell phone” And “just wanted to make a phone call”.

The result: around 50,000 units sold, and production stopped after a few months. The IBM Simon remains an important step in telephone innovation, as Charlotte Connelly, chief curator at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, England, points out, one of the few places where the IBM Simon is still on display. “As with all revolutions, when you look closely, they are made of small steps that accumulate to create a big change in our way of life,” she explains.

“It didn’t catch on, but it certainly showed people what was possible. That’s why I think it really paved the way.”

Charlotte Connelly, Chief Curator of the National Science and Media Museum

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It was only 13 years later that the Apple iPhone appeared, a distant descendant of the IBM Simon, the very first smartphone.