Give audiobooks, support local bookstores! Start gifting
Stephen Fry On The Phone The Complete Radio 4 Series by Stephen Fry
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Illustration of person sitting

Shop small, give big!

With credit bundles, you choose the number of credits and your recipient picks their audiobooks—all in support of local bookstores.

Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Nowโ€™s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weโ€™ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today

Stephen Fry On The Phone The Complete Radio 4 Series

$5.54

Narrator Stephen Fry

This audiobook uses AI narration.

Weโ€™re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more
Length 1 hour 6 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

Summary

Stephen Fry traces the evolution of the mobile phone, from hefty executive bricks that required a separate briefcase to carry the battery, to the smartphones available today. There are more mobile phones in the world than there are people on the planet: Stephen Fry talks to the backroom boys who made it all possible and hears how the technology succeeded in ways that the geeks had not necessarily intended. For example, the engineers who designed the early texting facilities didnโ€™t imagine that anyone might want to reply. (Just in case, they added a short list of possible pre-set answers: yes, no and maybe). They also thought taxifones and fax machines for your car would be winners. In the early nineties, Nokia, then famous for toilet paper and rubber boots, was on the brink of collapse; until the new CEO made a bold decision to focus solely on mobile phonesThanks to Margaret Thatcher opening up the airwaves, Britain became a world leader in mobile phone technology. And today, 85% of the silicon chips inside all mobiles are designed by just one Cambridge-based company.Series produced by Anna Buckley.

Illustration of person sitting

Shop small, give big!

With credit bundles, you choose the number of credits and your recipient picks their audiobooks—all in support of local bookstores.

Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Nowโ€™s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weโ€™ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today
Give audiobooks, support local bookstores! Start gifting