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So did our reliance on a single all-in-one mini computer that we carry our lives, memories, photos and literally everything we do. Simply examining the BOM cos

So did our reliance on a single all-in-one mini computer that we carry our lives, memories, photos and literally everything we do. Simply examining the BOM cost should reveal the extraordinary amount of processing power, memory, optics, security and system integration that has taken place between $200 and $1000 phones. So, a fair comparison would be to compare a phone from 2004: $200 Phone $200 Music Player $400 Netbook $300 Camera ----------- $1100 Just ball park figures to make a point. I don't think Netbooks existed in 2004.

dragontamer 8y ago
The closest equivalent to a modern phone from back in 2004 was a PDA (ex: Palm Pilot or Blackberry). You had internet, contacts, email, apps, mp3, and basic camera all on one device. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_700p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_700p That's 2005, but it gives you an idea of what was available at the time for ~$500. Looking back on it, it seems like the Treo 700p was still a smartphone as well... I guess I just remembered most of its PDA-functionality instead. EDIT: The main things a modern smartphone gives you are capacitive controls and a GPS. The "real internet" as well, since PDAs kinda surfed a different... protocol. I forget exactly, but it wasn't HTML, even if it was served over HTTP. Some... format that died a long time ago. I'd estimate a GPS costs $200, plus the subscription to the maps (you had to pay for map-subscriptions back then)
- romwell 8y ago
  >That's 2005, but it gives you an idea of what was available at the time for ~$500 Really not much, it seems. For many of today's users, cell phones have feature parity with desktop PC's for their casual use case (gaming, multimedia, Internet browsing, and even a lot of productivity software). None of that holds for Treo in 2005-2006.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    > gaming Heh. Ask how many friends know how to play Nokia's "snake" game. > multimedia People didn't really use PCs to watch videos back then. I mean, you could, but DVDs were usually played on DVD players, maybe your game console. BluRay didn't exist yet, and I'm sure you would have still come across VHS Tapes at that time. 2005... yeah, I distinctly remember renting movies from DVD-rental stores back then. I think Netflix (the DVD-rental part) was gaining in popularity at that time, so people figured DVD-rental stores were going away. If I remember 2005 correctly, it was a time where you'd have to play with DivX and XVid codecs before anything actually played on your PC. Definitely not easy for casual users. > Internet browsing Typical users back then didn't even have broadband yet. 2005 was kinda magical when you could send emails through your phone. For the kids out there: 56kbps (~7kB/s speeds) dial up connections would take 5-minutes to download a 2MB Newgrounds video. Oh yeah, and Youtube didn't exist yet. Mostly because 2MB files were already difficult to distribute. With that being said: those 2MB to 5MB Newground games were certainly what the casual people would do on the internet, at least at my school back then. Either that, or distribute TI-83 calculator games (TI83 phoenix). -------- It was a different time, with different computing expectations.
    - rhn_mk1 8y ago
      > If I remember 2005 correctly, it was a time where you'd have to play with DivX and XVid codecs before anything actually played on your PC. Definitely not easy for casual users. The casual user also changed. I remember that 90% of my computerized friends eMuled all movies they could get. The Lord of the Rings copies filmed using handleld cameras from cinema screens are distinctly burned in my memory. At the same time, DVD and Video CDs were quite popular when attached to magazines, which bumped the computer usage, as most everyone had a computer and few people had DVD players. Together, I think most heavy watching happened on computers also back then. When it comes to the internet, eMule arrived because dial up was dying already, meaning that people could actually use it for something useful. I don't think usage patterns changed that much.
- jaclaz 8y ago
  Well, for Euro 800 (around US$ 1000) you could get circa 2004-2005 a Sony-Ericsson P900-P910. It did have GPS/Maps (separate paid for program) and it could navigate the internet via WAP. Mine lasted some 10 years (admittedly I used it much more as a phone than to navigate internet) and sported an exceptionally good handwriting recognition.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    > and it could navigate the internet via WAP That's what it was called! Thanks, I was annoyed at myself for not remembering the name of that.
- xsmasher 8y ago
  You are probably thinking of WML - wireless markup language. A stripped-down version of HTML that let you do webbish things on devices that could never run a "real" web browser. Sites had to write their own WML pages for mobile users to be able at access the site. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/wml/wml_quick_guide.htm https://www.tutorialspoint.com/wml/wml_quick_guide.htm When the iPhone came out with a desktop-class browser it changed the game. Steve Jobs called it out in the iPhone keynote: > We wanted the best web browser in the world on our phone, not a baby web browser or a WAP browser, a real Web browser, and we picked the best one in the world, Safari, and we have Safari running on iPhone. It is the first fully usable html browser on a phone.
- mftrhu 8y ago
  > The "real internet" as well, since PDAs kinda surfed a different... protocol. I forget exactly, but it wasn't HTML, even if it was served over HTTP. Some... format that died a long time ago. This was actually only the case for feature phones. PDAs, at least those running PalmOS (like the Treo) could surf the real internet. I still have a Palm TX hanging around and the biggest problem is not the protocols themselves - it could access GMail just fine with the default mail app, and Blazer supports HTML just fine (if a subset that made sense on PDAs in 2005) - but connecting to WiFi. It supports just WEP and WPA-PSK, or WPA2 Enterprise, and it doesn't work with my home router.
romwell 8y ago
Netbooks didn't exist in 2004 (they were introduced in 2007 by Asus, with their EeePC model), and a $400 laptop in 2004 wouldn't do you much good. My CoreM laptop from 2006 was $700, and it was by all means a conservative choice in terms of firepower. Ditto for music player, IIRC $100 would barely get you a portable CD player in 2004. This only makes your point stronger, and as you said, it's just a ballpark figure anyway.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  People were definitely using iPods (and competitors) back in 2005. I remember that for sure. There were a LOT of cheaper MP3 players. It took a bit of technical know-how to rip a CD back then, but it was certainly something I did regularly. I don't think CD Players were ever super-popular. Walkmen (tapes) were extremely popular, but CDs came out around the time when iPods + clones existed. So most people I knew were listening to music on an MP3 player of some kind. CDs were used for burning mixed-disks, mostly to give to your friends to share music. Giving CDs to your friends was a "I liked this song, maybe you'll like it too" kinda deal. As soon as you got a CD from any friend, you'd rip it and put it into your own MP3 player.
- squarefoot 8y ago
  In 2004 I had a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P7010 which was 100% supported by Debian, by any means a netbook years before that word was invented. Not cheap, still the perfect tool to take around plugging it to network sockets and make tests: small, light enough, some good computing power, long battery life, and a wonderful 10" 1280x768 really bright screen. It lasted about 9 years, then a fall (not my fault) destroyed one of the screen hinges, and the high cost of repairing and upgrading ($$ battery and $$$ microdimms) turned it into a few recycled parts.

dragontamer 8y ago

The closest equivalent to a modern phone from back in 2004 was a PDA (ex: Palm Pilot or Blackberry). You had internet, contacts, email, apps, mp3, and basic camera all on one device. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_700p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_700p That's 2005, but it gives you an idea of what was available at the time for ~$500. Looking back on it, it seems like the Treo 700p was still a smartphone as well... I guess I just remembered most of its PDA-functionality instead. EDIT: The main things a modern smartphone gives you are capacitive controls and a GPS. The "real internet" as well, since PDAs kinda surfed a different... protocol. I forget exactly, but it wasn't HTML, even if it was served over HTTP. Some... format that died a long time ago. I'd estimate a GPS costs $200, plus the subscription to the maps (you had to pay for map-subscriptions back then)

romwell 8y ago
>That's 2005, but it gives you an idea of what was available at the time for ~$500 Really not much, it seems. For many of today's users, cell phones have feature parity with desktop PC's for their casual use case (gaming, multimedia, Internet browsing, and even a lot of productivity software). None of that holds for Treo in 2005-2006.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  > gaming Heh. Ask how many friends know how to play Nokia's "snake" game. > multimedia People didn't really use PCs to watch videos back then. I mean, you could, but DVDs were usually played on DVD players, maybe your game console. BluRay didn't exist yet, and I'm sure you would have still come across VHS Tapes at that time. 2005... yeah, I distinctly remember renting movies from DVD-rental stores back then. I think Netflix (the DVD-rental part) was gaining in popularity at that time, so people figured DVD-rental stores were going away. If I remember 2005 correctly, it was a time where you'd have to play with DivX and XVid codecs before anything actually played on your PC. Definitely not easy for casual users. > Internet browsing Typical users back then didn't even have broadband yet. 2005 was kinda magical when you could send emails through your phone. For the kids out there: 56kbps (~7kB/s speeds) dial up connections would take 5-minutes to download a 2MB Newgrounds video. Oh yeah, and Youtube didn't exist yet. Mostly because 2MB files were already difficult to distribute. With that being said: those 2MB to 5MB Newground games were certainly what the casual people would do on the internet, at least at my school back then. Either that, or distribute TI-83 calculator games (TI83 phoenix). -------- It was a different time, with different computing expectations.
  - rhn_mk1 8y ago
    > If I remember 2005 correctly, it was a time where you'd have to play with DivX and XVid codecs before anything actually played on your PC. Definitely not easy for casual users. The casual user also changed. I remember that 90% of my computerized friends eMuled all movies they could get. The Lord of the Rings copies filmed using handleld cameras from cinema screens are distinctly burned in my memory. At the same time, DVD and Video CDs were quite popular when attached to magazines, which bumped the computer usage, as most everyone had a computer and few people had DVD players. Together, I think most heavy watching happened on computers also back then. When it comes to the internet, eMule arrived because dial up was dying already, meaning that people could actually use it for something useful. I don't think usage patterns changed that much.
jaclaz 8y ago
Well, for Euro 800 (around US$ 1000) you could get circa 2004-2005 a Sony-Ericsson P900-P910. It did have GPS/Maps (separate paid for program) and it could navigate the internet via WAP. Mine lasted some 10 years (admittedly I used it much more as a phone than to navigate internet) and sported an exceptionally good handwriting recognition.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  > and it could navigate the internet via WAP That's what it was called! Thanks, I was annoyed at myself for not remembering the name of that.
xsmasher 8y ago
You are probably thinking of WML - wireless markup language. A stripped-down version of HTML that let you do webbish things on devices that could never run a "real" web browser. Sites had to write their own WML pages for mobile users to be able at access the site. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/wml/wml_quick_guide.htm https://www.tutorialspoint.com/wml/wml_quick_guide.htm When the iPhone came out with a desktop-class browser it changed the game. Steve Jobs called it out in the iPhone keynote: > We wanted the best web browser in the world on our phone, not a baby web browser or a WAP browser, a real Web browser, and we picked the best one in the world, Safari, and we have Safari running on iPhone. It is the first fully usable html browser on a phone.
mftrhu 8y ago
> The "real internet" as well, since PDAs kinda surfed a different... protocol. I forget exactly, but it wasn't HTML, even if it was served over HTTP. Some... format that died a long time ago. This was actually only the case for feature phones. PDAs, at least those running PalmOS (like the Treo) could surf the real internet. I still have a Palm TX hanging around and the biggest problem is not the protocols themselves - it could access GMail just fine with the default mail app, and Blazer supports HTML just fine (if a subset that made sense on PDAs in 2005) - but connecting to WiFi. It supports just WEP and WPA-PSK, or WPA2 Enterprise, and it doesn't work with my home router.

romwell 8y ago

Netbooks didn't exist in 2004 (they were introduced in 2007 by Asus, with their EeePC model), and a $400 laptop in 2004 wouldn't do you much good. My CoreM laptop from 2006 was $700, and it was by all means a conservative choice in terms of firepower. Ditto for music player, IIRC $100 would barely get you a portable CD player in 2004. This only makes your point stronger, and as you said, it's just a ballpark figure anyway.

dragontamer 8y ago
People were definitely using iPods (and competitors) back in 2005. I remember that for sure. There were a LOT of cheaper MP3 players. It took a bit of technical know-how to rip a CD back then, but it was certainly something I did regularly. I don't think CD Players were ever super-popular. Walkmen (tapes) were extremely popular, but CDs came out around the time when iPods + clones existed. So most people I knew were listening to music on an MP3 player of some kind. CDs were used for burning mixed-disks, mostly to give to your friends to share music. Giving CDs to your friends was a "I liked this song, maybe you'll like it too" kinda deal. As soon as you got a CD from any friend, you'd rip it and put it into your own MP3 player.
squarefoot 8y ago
In 2004 I had a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P7010 which was 100% supported by Debian, by any means a netbook years before that word was invented. Not cheap, still the perfect tool to take around plugging it to network sockets and make tests: small, light enough, some good computing power, long battery life, and a wonderful 10" 1280x768 really bright screen. It lasted about 9 years, then a fall (not my fault) destroyed one of the screen hinges, and the high cost of repairing and upgrading ($$ battery and $$$ microdimms) turned it into a few recycled parts.