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A Genealogy of Your Smartphone (Infographic) The cell phone is a smidge over 30 years old and the first commercial iteration was priced at almost $4,000.

By Catherine Clifford

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That little rectangular supercomputer that's either in your hand, pocket or purse hasn't always been so little, so rectangular or so powerful.

The first iteration of the telephone was actually a couple of cans connected by string. And that was about 350 years ago, according to this infographic generated by telecommunications company Invicta Telephone Sales. A couple hundred years later, in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patented a version of the telephone that allowed two people to talk over a long distance. It would be another 30 years before a telephone with a dial became widely available. And it wasn't until 1983 that the first cellphone available for commercial use entered the market -- costing almost $4,000.

Related: Apple Sells 10 Million iPhones in First Weekend

Take a look at this infographic for more details on the innovation that developed cans connected with string transform into that smartphone you obsess over now.

Click to Enlarge+
A Genealogy of Your Smartphone (Infographic)

Related: By 2017, the App Market Will Be a $77 Billion Industry (Infographic)
Catherine Clifford

Senior Entrepreneurship Writer at CNBC

Catherine Clifford is senior entrepreneurship writer at CNBC. She was formerly a senior writer at Entrepreneur.com, the small business reporter at CNNMoney and an assistant in the New York bureau for CNN. Clifford attended Columbia University where she earned a bachelor's degree. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can follow her on Twitter at @CatClifford.

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