The inventor of the cell phone tells the user to "get a life!"

Ask the kids who invented the cell phone, and we bet most young kids would say (wrongly) Steve Jobs. Let’s put this to rest for now. Steve Jobs didn’t invent the cell phone. Nor did he invent the MP3 player or the computer. He may have been responsible for coming up with tech CEO chic (the turtleneck, the jeans, and sneakers), but no, Jobs didn’t invent the cell phone.

Martin Cooper, inventor of the mobile phone, isn’t thrilled with how attached people are to the device these days

That credit goes to a gentleman named Martin Cooper who invented the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X in 1973. Now 92, Cooper appeared on the “BBC Breakfast” last week and the co-host of that show coincidentally revealed that she spends five hours a day on her phone. Cooper responded by saying, “Are you real? Do you really spend five hours a day? Get a life!” He then laughed at the idea of someone spending so much time on their phone every day.

Inventor of mobile phones Marin Cooper in 2014 with the Motorola DynaTAC 80000X

The inventor of the cell phone said he spends less than 5% of his time on a cell phone. But Cooper seems to be the one who is out of step with the crowd. Data last year from statistic found that 46% of Americans who responded to a survey said they spend five to six hours on their phones every day, while 11% used their handsets for seven hours or more.

Cooper got the idea for the cell phone while he was working at Motorola. The popularity of the car phone bothered him, especially the part about being tied to the car. That’s how he came up with the idea of having a phone placed in a car that a consumer can take out and take with them everywhere. He wanted the device to be “small enough to fit in your pocket, but big enough to fit between your ears and your mouth.”

He also wanted everyone to have their own personal phone number, which they eventually did. This, he says, is his greatest achievement. Previously, numbers were assigned based on whether the phone was used at a desk, at home, or in a car.

The first commercially available phone had a battery that lasted only 25 minutes

Motorola liked his idea so much that it threw millions into the phone’s development, and using technology the team working on the project had already used to make police radios, Motorola had a working phone within three months. To test it in public for the first time, Cooper called for reporters on April 3, 1973. He called AT&T chief engineer Joel Engel and said, “Joel, this is Marty. I’m calling you from a cell phone, a real portable cell phone.”

The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X has not been shipped to the public for ten years. When it was finally released, the device cost $3995, more than the price of two Samsung Galaxy Fold 3 handsets, and we’re not even calculating inflation into the mix. The phone weighed 2.5 pounds and was 10 inches long. The battery lasted 25 minutes and it took a whopping 10 hours to charge.

Even costing nearly $4,000, Cooper’s invention was a big hit, especially among businessmen, Wall Street traders, and anyone whose job required him to be in constant contact with others throughout the day.

Cooper’s story may soon hit the silver screen. He wrote a book called “Cutting the Cord” which was released last year and now movie studios have approached him to take his story to the silver screen.

And now here we are, many years later, and the smartphone is the most popular and necessary tool in everyone’s pocket. And for that, we can all thank Mr. Cooper for coming up with the idea.