Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • Stephen Fry On The Phone The Complete Radio 4 Series

  • By: Stephen Fry
  • Narrated by: Stephen Fry
  • Length: 1 hr and 6 mins
  • 3.8 out of 5 stars (23 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Stephen Fry On The Phone The Complete Radio 4 Series

By: Stephen Fry
Narrated by: Stephen Fry
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

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 here’s how the technology succeeded in ways that the geeks had not necessarily intended. For example, the engineers who designed the early texting facilities didn’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 90s, 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 phones…. Thanks 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.

©2011 Stephen Fry (P)2011 AudioGO Ltd
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Absolute Power cover art
Vital Organs cover art
Identity Crisis cover art
Infinite Monkey Cage cover art
Fake Law cover art
The News Quiz: Through the Years cover art
The Weimar Years cover art
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien cover art
Bernard Who? cover art
Doctor Who: Scratchman cover art
A Complete Guide to British Birds cover art
Steptoe & Son: The BBC Radio Collection cover art
The Oscar Wilde BBC Radio Drama Collection cover art
Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time & Other Mysteries cover art
A History of Modern Britain cover art
Julia cover art

What listeners say about Stephen Fry On The Phone The Complete Radio 4 Series

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

How short it was

When it was described as the complete series, I never would have imagined it to be such a brief podcast, given that I paid as much as a book for it. Very disappointing value for money.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Short and maybe a bit biased?

Initial episodes are ok but when we moved into the smartphone era, despite being published in 2011 there is no mention of Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android etc, just Apple. Very short series also.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!