3 ms·

I'll agree that the original iPhone was an exception, but not in the way you claim. The first iPhone was (basically) first at the smartphone market. But was it

by croon 10y ago

I'll agree that the original iPhone was an exception, but not in the way you claim. The first iPhone was (basically) first at the smartphone market. But was it good? Hell no. It was extremely buggy, slow, no app store, could barely make phone calls. While I'll agree there was no worthwhile competitor until Nexus One came along and set the standard, Android surpassed iOS fairly quickly in features, and hasn't lossed the lead there yet, while speeds have been fairly equal for years.

dpark 10y ago
The iPhone was not the first in the market. Smartphones had been around for years at that point. It's just that no one really bought them. The iPhone effectively created it's own market by expanding it so much, but it wasn't first by a long shot. I'm sure the original iPhone had issues, but it was still better than the stuff it replaced. Especially a year or two later when the 3G and then 3GS landed. The 3GS was not buggy or slow. It made good phone calls and had an app store. Meanwhile Android was still trash and none of the original competitors were catching up. Android did catch up on paper quickly. It took a much longer time before it caught up in reality. Android for a long time was very slow, the UI felt amateur, and all the hardware felt cheap. I remember several generations in, finding that Angry Birds still lagged and froze on brand new Android hardware.
Domenic_S 10y ago
I had an original iphone and I remember it a lot differently. Blackberry owned the world, if you had a business smartphone it was almost certainly a BB. iPhone was a phenomenon. There was no app store because there were no apps. An unlimited-everything plan on AT&T (iphone's only carrier) was $120/month. I remember phone calls working just fine - it was my main/only phone while I was doing a lot of remote consulting and I don't remember problems at all. "Slow" is relative - I came from a blackberry and never looked back.
- mikeash 10y ago
  There were a ton of apps for the original iPhone if you jailbroke. There was no App Store because Apple didn't originally plan on supporting any third-party apps. Jobs stood up in front of five thousand developers and pitched his "sweet solution" of building HTML5 "apps" that ran in Safari. Then everybody pitched a fit and Apple hastily threw together an SDK, then released the App Store in iPhone OS 2 the next year.
MBCook 10y ago
It was the first modern smartphone because it completely redefined what a smartphone should be.

by croon 10y ago

dpark 10y ago

The iPhone was not the first in the market. Smartphones had been around for years at that point. It's just that no one really bought them. The iPhone effectively created it's own market by expanding it so much, but it wasn't first by a long shot. I'm sure the original iPhone had issues, but it was still better than the stuff it replaced. Especially a year or two later when the 3G and then 3GS landed. The 3GS was not buggy or slow. It made good phone calls and had an app store. Meanwhile Android was still trash and none of the original competitors were catching up. Android did catch up on paper quickly. It took a much longer time before it caught up in reality. Android for a long time was very slow, the UI felt amateur, and all the hardware felt cheap. I remember several generations in, finding that Angry Birds still lagged and froze on brand new Android hardware.

Domenic_S 10y ago

I had an original iphone and I remember it a lot differently. Blackberry owned the world, if you had a business smartphone it was almost certainly a BB. iPhone was a phenomenon. There was no app store because there were no apps. An unlimited-everything plan on AT&T (iphone's only carrier) was $120/month. I remember phone calls working just fine - it was my main/only phone while I was doing a lot of remote consulting and I don't remember problems at all. "Slow" is relative - I came from a blackberry and never looked back.

mikeash 10y ago
There were a ton of apps for the original iPhone if you jailbroke. There was no App Store because Apple didn't originally plan on supporting any third-party apps. Jobs stood up in front of five thousand developers and pitched his "sweet solution" of building HTML5 "apps" that ran in Safari. Then everybody pitched a fit and Apple hastily threw together an SDK, then released the App Store in iPhone OS 2 the next year.

MBCook 10y ago

It was the first modern smartphone because it completely redefined what a smartphone should be.