Technology

I remember the first keynote. Jobs kept repeating phrases like music player, web browser, and phone together like that. And then boom, he whipped out the first iPhone that was in his pocket the whole time. While there were similar devices at the time, nothing (to my knowledge) was all one package especially in an all touch device that small.

Well, there existed phones that were kind of what smartphones became. Blackberries and Palms get a lot of the attention as they were what executives used, but there were also PocketPC devices that were usually white label manufactured HTC devices that were branded after carriers or some other company like HP. They generally were much larger screened devices with a few buttons at the bottom. They were resistive touchscreens so using your fingers was pretty meh for responsiveness, and the UI was just not designed in a way that was pleasant to navigate. Picture a shrunk down desktop interface. I'd say the UI was the biggest shakeup that they did in the product category, followed by steadily raising the bar for hardware in a space that often would have cheap plastic components. Don't get me wrong, I think too much glass and aluminum is actually poorer than something like kevlar especially for dents and dings, but it doesn't look nearly as sexy.

Ah, that makes sense.

Apple was famous for its innovations in market segments and feature removals.

The first Android was made about 1999/2000, I'd read about it in a trade mag just before I was laid off from one company (they provided that trade mag, which is why I know the date). The idea of running Linux for a phone OS was intriguiging at the tomr, as we were doing some Linux testing ourselves.

At that same time (late 90's), we were already deploying full-color Palm Pilots with wifi, and eagerly waiting for the integrated phone models whi were projected to be released about 2000.

I was using a Treo with a touch screen before iPhones existed, and I was a late adopter in about 2003 because I don't do early versions, I wanted CDMA, and didn't want the Palm-like flip cover thing. The Treo was kind of the first bar-type smart phone, just rounded. I used to watch movies on that thing on flights. I kept multiple SD cards so I could swap them out (they ejected from the top, no opening the case, no power cycle).

I (well, my deployment team) had deployed thousands of Palm Pilots with wifi access, and then Treos, which synced to a desktop app, in the early 2000s, probably 5 years before iPhone existed.

It could send/receive emails, SMS, calendar, load all sorts of apps from simple games like checkers to Monopoly. It did GPS and mapping with a third party SD card.

It had a third party office app that is now available on Android. I used a shopping app that could sync to an account online. It could browse the web (though the web browsing was pretty awful at the time). It could send data wirelessly to people nearby using infrared.

It had a camera (a shitty one) that could also do video. It used a data connection with the cell provider. It had Bluetooth, and could send Palm apps to other devices with it.

There were versions that had Windows Mobile on them, they were pretty good.

I moved to Android from Treo in 2009.

Smartphones weren't a new idea, Palm had been on it since the mid 90's, just waiting for the phone tech to be small enough to pack into a Palm Pilot.

Apple never leads, despite what their PR is so good at promulgating.

What they are excellent at is watching the market and timing their entry perfectly, with a product people want, giving the impression that they lead the market. And I don't say this as a criticism, what they do is brilliant, and the products they release are usually good at what they're intended to do.

I really like their design at times. The iPhone, from a physicality stand point, is brilliantly balanced, shaped, sized. Unfortunately iOS just doesn't meet my personal needs.