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Decade in Review: What the Smartphone Has Wrought

Pedestrians in London looking at their smartphones. (Reuters)
Pedestrians in London looking at their smartphones. (Reuters)
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Decade in Review: What the Smartphone Has Wrought

Pedestrians in London looking at their smartphones. (Reuters)
Pedestrians in London looking at their smartphones. (Reuters)

When the first Apple iPhone hit the market in 2007, not everyone was convinced it would supplant the flip-phone. When Google’s Android software system arrived a year later, the Blackberry still seemed to have bright future.

But with the iPhone 4 in 2010, featuring a high-resolution display, sleek design and front-facing camera, our collective fate was sealed. Here are 10 ways the smartphone has made its mark over the decade.

Access everywhere

Today some 5 billion smartphones are in use around the world, according to Canalysis Research. The total number of internet subscriptions has soared to 7.2 billion globally from 1.3 billion in 2010, the vast majority of them mobile subscriptions, International Telecommunications Union data shows. The explosion in connectivity has been especially dramatic in the developing world, where there are now more mobile connections than people.

Tech uber alles

Apple Inc, once a niche computer company, is now one of the world’s most valuable companies thanks to the iPhone. The five largest Fortune 500 technology companies - Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook - currently boast a market cap of $4.7 trillion, compared with about $800 billion for the top five in 2010. Not all of that is due to the smartphone, of course, but the mobile-related technologies and services accounted for nearly $4 trillion in economic activity in 2018, according to trade group GSMA.

There’s an app for that

Whether we’re hailing a cab, ordering food, playing a game, finding a date, listening to music or shopping for just about anything, there’s a good chance we’ll be doing it with a smartphone app that didn’t exist in 2010. Many of most popular apps are free, but consumers are still expected to spend more than $120 billion in app stores during 2019, according to App Annie, a mobile apps analytics firm.

Feed me

The endless scroll on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media apps now consumes 34 minutes of every US adult’s day, according to Nielsen. Fewer people are sitting on the sofa to watch live TV at set times, and advertisers are following. Mobile ad spending surpassed TV for the first time in 2018 in terms of percentage share of the US market, according to research firm eMarketer. We can also thank the smartphone for Instagram influencers and fake news.

Smile for the (smartphone) camera

Global shipments of digital cameras dropped from their 2010 peak of 121 million to just 19 million units in 2018, according to the Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA). Meantime the latest phones pack as many four camera lenses and cutting-edge software that makes it easier than ever to get that perfect shot. The front-facing camera might be the busiest: Google reports that its Android devices take 93 million selfies every day.

Where am I?

The satellite tracking technology known as GPS, combined with information from cell towers and Wi-Fi networks, has made the smartphones incredibly powerful tracking devices. Google maps and its poorer cousins enable even the most directionally impaired find their way around unfamiliar locales with ease.

For the privacy-minded, though, it’s a disaster: Phone companies and app makers routinely record the movements of subscribers and sell that data to advertisers, a $20 billion-a-year business. The data is “anonymized,” but as numerous studies and a recent New York Times investigation have revealed it is often a simple matter to identify who is behind the dot on the map. Nearly 50 percent of companies surveyed by Verizon this year used or planned to soon use smartphone management tools to track their employees.

You can look it up

The 2010 edition of the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica, all 32 volumes and 129 pounds of it, turned out to be the last. But untold barroom arguments or dining room debates can now be settled on the spot: Wikipedia is consulted more than 240 million times daily.

Distracting ourselves to death

In 2018 alone in the United States, 2,628 fatal crashes involved a distracted driver, and of those deadly crashes, about 13% involved mobile phone use, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Forget your wallet

Apple Pay and Google Pay are still afterthoughts for most US consumers, but China may be a harbinger. Alipay and WeChat pay, China’s two big smartphone payment services, have reached a combined adoption rate of over 80% since they were launched around the beginning of the decade, according to a study by Bain. The QR code now peppers storefront windows. Even streetside beggars have adapted, sometimes rejecting cash and asking that payments be made via WeChat Pay or Alipay.

Say what?

Among the major casualties of the smartphone era is the conventional phone call itself: ubiquitous messaging apps have helped make video calls, GIFs, emojis and audio messaging preferred modes of communication. In the UK, for example, the total number of minutes spent on voice calls fell from 254 billion in 2013 to 206 billion in 2018, and the number of text messages dropped from 129 billion to 74 billion over the same period, according to Ofcom. Mobile data usage, meanwhile, jumped almost nine-fold between 2013 and 2018. The number of available emojis has nearly tripled to almost 3,000 since 2010.

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Varieties

New York Seeks Rights for Beloved but Illegal ‘Bodega Cats’

Guest Dan Rimada, founder of Bodega Cats of New York holds a cat named Ashley in a bodega corner store on December 17, 2025 in New York City. (AFP)
Guest Dan Rimada, founder of Bodega Cats of New York holds a cat named Ashley in a bodega corner store on December 17, 2025 in New York City. (AFP)
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New York Seeks Rights for Beloved but Illegal ‘Bodega Cats’

Guest Dan Rimada, founder of Bodega Cats of New York holds a cat named Ashley in a bodega corner store on December 17, 2025 in New York City. (AFP)
Guest Dan Rimada, founder of Bodega Cats of New York holds a cat named Ashley in a bodega corner store on December 17, 2025 in New York City. (AFP)

Simba, a large cat with thick ginger and white fur, is one of thousands of felines that live in New York's corner shops known as "bodegas" -- even if their presence is illegal.

Praised for warding off pests, so-called bodega cats are also a cultural fixture for New Yorkers, some of whom are now pushing to enshrine legal rights for the little store helpers.

"Simba is very important to us because he keeps the shop clean of the mice," Austin Moreno, a shopkeeper in Manhattan, told AFP from behind his till.

The fluffy inhabitant also helps to entice customers.

"People, very often, they come to visit to ask, what is his name? The other day, some girls saw him for the first time and now they come every day," said Moreno.

Around a third of the city's roughly 10,000 bodegas are thought to have a resident cat despite being liable to fines of $200-$350 for keeping animals in a store selling food, according to Dan Rimada, founder of Bodega Cats of New York.

Rimada photographs the felines for his social media followers and last year launched a petition to legalize bodega cats, which drew nearly 14,000 signatures.

"These cats are woven into the fabric of New York City, and that's an important story to tell," he said.

- Pressure point -

Inspired by Rimada's petition, New York City council member Keith Powers has proposed a measure to shield the owners of bodega cats from penalties.

His legislation would also provide free vaccinations and spay or neuter services to the felines.

But animal shelters and rights groups say this wouldn't go far enough.

While Simba can nap in the corner of his shop with kibble within paw's reach, many of his fellow cats are locked in basements, deprived of food or proper care, and abandoned when they grow old or fall ill.

Becky Wisdom, who rescues cats in New York, warned that lifting the threat of fines could remove "leverage" to encourage bodega owners to better care for the animals.

She also opposes public funds being given to business owners rather than low-income families who want their cats spayed or neutered.

The latter is a big issue in New York, where the stray cat population is estimated at around half a million.

- Radical overhaul -

Regardless of what the city decides, it is the state of New York that has authority over business rules, said Allie Taylor, president of Voters for Animal Rights.

Taylor said she backs another initiative proposed by state assembly member Linda Rosenthal, a prominent animal welfare advocate, who proposes allowing cats in bodegas under certain conditions.

These would include vet visits, mandatory spaying or neutering, and ensuring the cats have sufficient food, water and a safe place to sleep.

Beyond the specific case of bodega cats, Taylor is pushing for a more radical overhaul of animal protection in New York.

"Instead of focusing on one subset of cats, we need the city to make serious investments, meaning tens of millions of dollars per year into free or low cost spay, neuter and veterinary care," she said.

Varieties

Warming Climate Threatens Greenland’s Ancestral Way of Life

Musher Nukaaraq Lennert Olsen offers some dry food to his dogs after a ride near the "dog town" ofSisimiut, Greenland on January 31, 2026. (AFP)
Musher Nukaaraq Lennert Olsen offers some dry food to his dogs after a ride near the "dog town" ofSisimiut, Greenland on January 31, 2026. (AFP)
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Warming Climate Threatens Greenland’s Ancestral Way of Life

Musher Nukaaraq Lennert Olsen offers some dry food to his dogs after a ride near the "dog town" ofSisimiut, Greenland on January 31, 2026. (AFP)
Musher Nukaaraq Lennert Olsen offers some dry food to his dogs after a ride near the "dog town" ofSisimiut, Greenland on January 31, 2026. (AFP)

Standing in his boat with binoculars in hand, hunter Malik Kleist scans the horizon for seals. But this February, the sea ice in southwestern Greenland has yet to freeze, threatening traditional livelihoods like his.

"Normally the seals are on the ice or in the more calm waters. But today we had to sail all the way into the fjords to find them," the 37-year-old tells AFP.

The Arctic region is on the frontline of global warming, heating up four times faster than the rest of the planet since 1979, according to a 2022 study in scientific journal Nature, causing the sea ice to retreat.

Seals rely on pack ice to give birth, to rest and for protection.

Hunters increasingly have to sail farther along the jagged coast of Sisimiut, navigating into the fjords for several hours to find them.

Traditionally, hunters' boats would head straight out to sea, slowly pushing through the ice and creating holes that attract seals coming up for air.

But without any ice, "it's too windy and the waves are too big," Kleist says.

Last year was exceptionally warm in the vast autonomous territory, with several temperature records beaten, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI).

In December, the Summit Station, located at the height of Greenland's ice sheet, recorded an average temperature of -30.9 degrees C (-23.6 Fahrenheit), 8.1C higher than the December average during the period 1991-2020.

"It affects everything we do. Because normally around November, December the ice comes. And this year there's no ice, so it affects our living a lot," Kleist says.

- Financial woes -

For the same reason, the government has also had to postpone the annual winter musk ox hunt that was due to start on January 31.

There wasn't enough snow and ice to transport the massive animals that roam the Arctic tundra back from Kangerlussuaq where they are predominantly found, around 165 kilometers (103 miles) away. Greenland has no roads connecting its towns.

That has left some Sisimiut hunters with less income than usual.

"This time of year there is not much to hunt. So we rely on musk ox meat and skin," Kleist says.

"Many of my fellow hunters are struggling with money right now."

Every part of the animal, from the fur to the meat, is either used or sold.

The summer hunting season has therefore gained importance, enabling Greenlanders to fill their freezers to get them through the winter months, he tells AFP over a steaming bowl of fish stew.

The shorter winter season has also impacted another key activity in Greenland, one that has become increasingly important to the tourism sector: dogsled tours.

In the Sisimiut neighborhood where the dogs are kept, their thunderous barking mounts as Nukaaraq Olsen, a 21-year-old musher, attaches them to the sled.

Raring to get going, his 18 dogs are hard to hold back. Twenty minutes later, the group bounds off.

But the road is bumpy, and several times Olsen has to get up to manually push the sled, stuck on the tundra's rocks in patches where there is no ice.

"This year we had a lot of hot, warm days, even though it's December or January," he says.

Other parts of the route are no longer safe to use, due to repeated melting and freezing of snowfall which causes uneven layers, he explains.

- Dehydrated dogs -

The dogs' health is also affected by the changing climate.

They are used to quenching their thirst with snow, but with little or no snowfall, they can easily get dehydrated. Mushers have to take that into account when caring for their animals.

Many have even had to get rid of their dogs, the business of maintaining them no longer profitable with the dogsled season shrinking to just two months, says Emilie Andersen-Ranberg, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen who runs a dog clinic in Sisimiut.
Others, such as 72-year-old Johanne Bech, are finding novel ways to adapt.

She plans to put wheels on her sled to continue running dogsled tours during the summer period.

That solution is growing in popularity, as "the window with snow is getting more and more narrow," the veterinarian says.

Over the past 20 years, the number of sleddogs has been halved from 25,000 to 13,000, according to a 2024 article from the University of Greenland in 2024.

Yet Johanne Bech remains optimistic about the future.

"I hope this is just for a short time, so we can go back to a little more stable snow or more ice in the future."

Varieties

January Was Fifth Hottest on Record despite Cold Snap

This handout photo taken on February 7, 2026 and received on February 10 from Japan's Ministry of Defense shows members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force's 5th Infantry Regiment, stationed in Aomori Prefecture, carrying out snow removal work in a town within Aomori Prefecture. (Photo by Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense / AFP)
This handout photo taken on February 7, 2026 and received on February 10 from Japan's Ministry of Defense shows members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force's 5th Infantry Regiment, stationed in Aomori Prefecture, carrying out snow removal work in a town within Aomori Prefecture. (Photo by Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense / AFP)
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January Was Fifth Hottest on Record despite Cold Snap

This handout photo taken on February 7, 2026 and received on February 10 from Japan's Ministry of Defense shows members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force's 5th Infantry Regiment, stationed in Aomori Prefecture, carrying out snow removal work in a town within Aomori Prefecture. (Photo by Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense / AFP)
This handout photo taken on February 7, 2026 and received on February 10 from Japan's Ministry of Defense shows members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force's 5th Infantry Regiment, stationed in Aomori Prefecture, carrying out snow removal work in a town within Aomori Prefecture. (Photo by Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense / AFP)

The planet experienced its fifth-hottest January on record despite a cold snap that swept across the United States and Europe, the EU's climate monitor said Tuesday.

The Northern Hemisphere was hit by severe cold waves in the final weeks of January as a polar jet stream blew icy air into Europe and North America, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

But monthly temperatures were above average over much of the globe, including in large parts of the Arctic and western North America, according to Copernicus.

"January 2026 delivered a stark reminder that the climate system can sometimes simultaneously deliver very cold weather in one region, and extreme heat in another," said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

The average global temperature in January was 1.47C above preindustrial times.

Europe endured its coldest January since 2010, with an average temperature of 2.34C, the service said.

The United States, meanwhile, was hit by a monster winter storm that dumped snow and crippling ice from New Mexico to Maine. It was linked to more than 100 deaths.

The planet remains in an extended run of human-driven warming, with 2024 setting a record high, 2023 ranking second 2025 now third warmest.