[ELI5] If smartphones can be used for long range communication, then why can’t it be used to communicate like walkie-talkies?

Question

[ELI5] If smartphones can be used for long range communication, then why can’t it be used to communicate like walkie-talkies?

In: 10

Answer 1

They had that in the early 2000s. Phones with phone to phone communication. The use cases for that is pretty limited so it never really caught on and stopped being included. It really only made sense during the small time period when people had phones but regularly were out of cell range (but still wanted to talk to people near by?)