4 ms·

I was behind the curve on smartphones for a long time. Luckily my dumbphone had 3G and Java, so I had Google Maps and Facebook on my dumbphone... with multitask

by tormeh 11y ago

I was behind the curve on smartphones for a long time. Luckily my dumbphone had 3G and Java, so I had Google Maps and Facebook on my dumbphone... with multitasking! Slow as hell, but the dumbphone=>smartphone transition was more gradual than most people realize - It was mostly about better UI and hardware; the basic software was already there.

digi_owl 11y ago
Frankly many "dumbphones" could rival iPhone when it launched, yet the press went gaga about smartphone for the masses (because Apple made it, natch). The basic problem was that USA was lagging the mobile world severely, so when the likes of iPhone shipped over there it seemed like a revolution for that insular market. I just wish the wider (tech) press didn't so much unquestionably parrot the US press.
- eropple 11y ago
  > because Apple made it, natch Or because it just plain felt better to use and was available on a heretofore unprecedented scale among people who shape public opinion. But that doesn't allow one to impute some kind of invalidity to the occurrence, does it?
- duaneb 11y ago
  I mean any phone can rival the iphone. It's also not hard to see that the mobile browsers at the time were utterly miserable to use. Touch was only a part of it.
- masklinn 11y ago
  > Frankly many "dumbphones" could rival iPhone when it launched Did you live through these? I used most of the pre-iPhone Nokia S40 smartphones and owned a few of them, both "consumer" N-series and "professional" E-series. They only rivaled iphones in the checkbox sense: features were technically present on the phone, anything beyond that was missing, the hardware was usually insufficient, the software was garbage on both usability and performances, the overall experience was utterly miserable. After I finally switched from my E70 to a 3G the only thing I wondered is why I hadn't switched earlier (answer being I didn't want to lose the checkbox of 3G support, never mind that I'd have had more utility from 2G on an iphone than I did from 3G on an E70). And dumbphones didn't come close (dumbphones were what non-corp US users used).
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    Still own a SE C702, and it has served me well.
SixSigma 11y ago
People quickly forget that the iPhone didn't have the appstore at launch. It was an ipod with browser, maps, email, sms and a phone. I think the real innovation was the data contract, getting a decent data allowance for other phones was for Rockerfella.

by tormeh 11y ago

digi_owl 11y ago

Frankly many "dumbphones" could rival iPhone when it launched, yet the press went gaga about smartphone for the masses (because Apple made it, natch). The basic problem was that USA was lagging the mobile world severely, so when the likes of iPhone shipped over there it seemed like a revolution for that insular market. I just wish the wider (tech) press didn't so much unquestionably parrot the US press.

eropple 11y ago
> because Apple made it, natch Or because it just plain felt better to use and was available on a heretofore unprecedented scale among people who shape public opinion. But that doesn't allow one to impute some kind of invalidity to the occurrence, does it?
duaneb 11y ago
I mean any phone can rival the iphone. It's also not hard to see that the mobile browsers at the time were utterly miserable to use. Touch was only a part of it.
masklinn 11y ago
> Frankly many "dumbphones" could rival iPhone when it launched Did you live through these? I used most of the pre-iPhone Nokia S40 smartphones and owned a few of them, both "consumer" N-series and "professional" E-series. They only rivaled iphones in the checkbox sense: features were technically present on the phone, anything beyond that was missing, the hardware was usually insufficient, the software was garbage on both usability and performances, the overall experience was utterly miserable. After I finally switched from my E70 to a 3G the only thing I wondered is why I hadn't switched earlier (answer being I didn't want to lose the checkbox of 3G support, never mind that I'd have had more utility from 2G on an iphone than I did from 3G on an E70). And dumbphones didn't come close (dumbphones were what non-corp US users used).
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Still own a SE C702, and it has served me well.

SixSigma 11y ago

People quickly forget that the iPhone didn't have the appstore at launch. It was an ipod with browser, maps, email, sms and a phone. I think the real innovation was the data contract, getting a decent data allowance for other phones was for Rockerfella.