( CNN ) -- Auto-correct and `` Angry Birds . '' GPS , and those awkward texts from last night . Mobile phones , and their promise of unprecedented connectivity , have altered the way we live . And it all started 40 years ago today . That 's when Martin Cooper , a vice president at Motorola , stepped onto a New York City sidewalk and made the first known cellphone call in history . And , whether you thank him or blame him , we have n't stopped talking , texting and tweeting since . In the time since Cooper brandished what would become the DynaTAC phone , our mobiles have gone from now-laughably clunky bricks to sleek , stylized slivers of technology . Now they 're becoming fashionably monstrous with phone-tablet hybrids like the Galaxy Note . And , along the way , they 've changed everything . `` We knew that someday everybody would have a ( cell ) phone , but it was hard to imagine that that would happen in my lifetime , '' Cooper said to CNN last year . `` And now we 've got almost five billion phones in the world . Wow . '' Cooper and his team had been in a race with AT & T 's Bell Labs to create a cellphone . They 'd worked for about three months on the model he walked outside with on April 3 , 1973 . And that first call ? It was to AT & T 's Joel Engell , who headed up Bell Labs . `` I called and told him , 'Joel , I 'm calling you from a cellular phone , a real cellular phone , a handheld , portable , real cellular phone ' , '' Cooper recalled . And , as he recalls it , his rival was n't quite as talkative . `` I do n't remember exactly what he said , but it was really quiet for a while , '' he said . `` My assumption was that he was grinding his teeth . He was very polite and ended the call . When asked about it , he says he has no recollection of this moment . '' It would take 10 years for a version of that DynaTAC ( Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage ) phone to hit the market , for a hefty $ 3,900 . The kind of phone Gordon Gekko wielded in `` Wall Street , '' it weighed 2.5 pounds and was about a foot tall . Compare that to the iPhone 5 , which weighs in at under 4 ounces , is less than 5 inches from top to bottom and sells at prices starting at $ 199 . Not that Cooper , now 84 , necessarily embraces every aspect of the latest advances in the field he helped create . `` I must tell you as much as we were dreamers , we never imagined that all these things could be combined into one . And I 'm really not so sure that it 's a great thing , '' he said . `` Phones have gotten so complicated , so hard to use , that you wonder if this is designed for real people or for engineers . '' What Cooper foresees for phones .
The first cellphone call was made 40 years ago Wednesday . Martin Cooper of Motorola called a rival from a New York sidewalk on April 3 , 1973 . The phone weighed 2.5 pounds and would cost $ 3,900 .