The inventor of the mobile phone says the devices have become too complex, with a range of features from cameras to music, since he made the first wireless call more than three decades ago.

"Whenever you create a universal device that does all things for all people, it does not do any things well," former Motorola researcher Martin Cooper said at a privacy conference in Madrid.

Martin Cooper, the inventor of the mobile phone.

"Our future, I think, is a number of specialist devices that focus on one thing that will improve our lives," he added.

Cooper, 80, who was born in Chicago, was the lead engineer of the Motorola team that developed the handheld mobile phone. He made the first wireless call from a busy Manhattan street corner on April 3, 1973.