Francis James Canova Jr. (born 23 December 1956) is an American electronics designer who originated the idea for the IBM Simon and has thus been described as the inventor of the smartphone.

Frank Canova was born in Wilmington, Delaware, raised in Green Cove Springs, Florida, and attended Clay High School, graduating in 1974.

His boss, Jerry Merckel, was working on the development of PCMCIA cards that could be used to expand the memory of laptop computers and realized that they could also be used in the sort of device that Canova was thinking of.

[2] The device was an immediate success at the show and Canova found himself on the front of the money section of USA Today, pictured holding the phone.

It was released under the name Simon in August 1994[2] and patented by Canova and other team members in 1995 with a priority date of 13 November 1992.