The invention of the smartphone touchscreen was a cumulative effort over decades involving multiple inventors and technologies:

• The earliest concept of a finger-driven touchscreen was developed by British engineer Eric Arthur Johnson in 1965, who created a capacitive touch display intended for air traffic control systems. He published detailed papers and was granted a patent in 1969 for this technology

• In 1971, Dr. G. Samuel Hurst invented the resistive touchscreen, initially not transparent, which became the basis for many modern touchscreens. He and his team at Elographics later patented the first curved glass touch interface in the early 1970s

• The first mobile phone with a touchscreen was the IBM Simon Personal Communicator, launched in 1993 by IBM. It used a resistive touchscreen operated with a stylus and had features like email and a calendar, making it one of the earliest devices resembling a smartphone

• The first phone with a large capacitive touchscreen was the LG Prada, announced in December 2006

• The major breakthrough that popularized the modern touchscreen smartphone was Apple's launch of the first iPhone in 2007. Apple redefined the smartphone by introducing a fully capacitive touchscreen with multi-touch capabilities, making touchscreen interaction intuitive and widespread

In summary:

Inventor/Company| Contribution| Year
---|---|---
Eric Arthur Johnson| First finger-driven capacitive touchscreen| 1965-1969
Dr. G. Samuel Hurst| Invented resistive touchscreen (Elograph)| 1971-1974
IBM| First touchscreen mobile phone (IBM Simon)| 1993
LG| First capacitive touchscreen phone (LG Prada)| 2006
Apple| Popularized modern multi-touch smartphone (iPhone)| 2007

Thus, the touchscreen itself was invented by pioneers like Eric Johnson and Samuel Hurst, while the first touchscreen smartphone was IBM's Simon, and the modern smartphone touchscreen era was launched by Apple with the iPhone in 2007