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

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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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