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Yes, unless I completely misrecall, these were called “smartphones” before the iPhone launched. After that, the iPhone was clearly something qualitatively diff

Yes, unless I completely misrecall, these were called “smartphones” before the iPhone launched. After that, the iPhone was clearly something qualitatively different, so people (or rather, journalists, phone stores and the like) started calling the old style “feature phones”. I’d say it’s now misleading and even incorrect to call something a “smartphone” if it doesn’t have a full-size touchscreen.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Can't agree with that - many early androids, the original and current android Blackberry (key2?) are all smartphones, but have or had a keyboard. There's also a selection of crazy expensive Far East smart flip phones with Motorola Razr form factor. All deserve to be called smart phones.
dragonwriter 7y ago
They were called smartphones even after the iPhone launch until the iOS v. Android duopoly was established.
- iainmerrick 7y ago
  You’re right, before Android took off, it was just “iPhone”.
masklinn 7y ago
> Yes, unless I completely misrecall, these were called “smartphones” before the iPhone launched. You don't misrecall. Even phones without a full keyboard like Nokia's N-series (e.g. the very popular N-70 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N70 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N70) were considered smartphones.
taneq 7y ago
As I understood it, the key difference was being able to add functionality by installing third-party applications. That's what made a smartphone "smart", as opposed to a featurephone which was stuck with only the "features" implemented by the manufacturer. If you're looking for a word to describe phones whose interface consists of a touchscreen with icons and gestures, I'd suggest "phablet".
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  Virtually all pre-iphone featurephones could install third-party Java apps.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    And Symbian and Windows CE apps.
- kalleboo 7y ago
  Most feature phones of the era could install J2ME apps, which had pretty deep APIs (including GPS, hardware 3D graphics, Bluetooth, camera, filesystem, J2ME live wallpapers etc) and on higher-end feature phones could be multitasked. When the iPhone launched, people called it a smartphone even though you couldn't install apps. Multitasking was also years away. "Smartphone" has never meant anything really. Just marketing.
- Armisael16 7y ago
  Phablet means something distinctly different; it’s a phone that’s so large that it’s verging in being a tablet. Usually thing means a between 5” and 6” screen. By your definition the original iPhone (3.5” screen) was a phablet.
  - km3k 7y ago
    Yes, but the size people see as phablet has changed over time. It's basically a size larger than the average person is comfortable with as a phone. Yes, it used to be 5-6", but now it is more in the 6-7.5" range, largely due to the shrinking of bezels allowing larger screens in the same physical size phone.
mclightning 7y ago
I think before iPhone, feature phones were the ones that only run J2ME apps/games. Smartphones were; Symbian, Maemo.
- kube-system 7y ago
  And (the original) Windows Mobile.
  - snaky 7y ago
    That's fascinating how people forget about (the original) Windows Mobile that had 42% of U.S. smartphone market share in 2007.
- rusticpenn 7y ago
  Maemo was comparable or better than ios at that time...
ollie87 7y ago
Yeah, I had a Nokia 6680 back in 2005 that was classed as smartphone (Symbian after all was a Smartphone OS). It was, of course, absolutely bloody awful and didn't have even enough RAM to do the most basic things. But it was 3G and I had an unlimited plan that I tried to make the most of by watching videos etc on the go. I even used to use it as an MP3 player.
- sdenton4 7y ago
  Which brings another point: the jio phone is orders of magnitude better than the deaths phones available the last time feature phones were big in the US or Europe.
dkarl 7y ago
After that, the iPhone was clearly something qualitatively different, so people (or rather, journalists, phone stores and the like) started calling the old style “feature phones”. Exactly, "feature phones" were called that because of how the cell phone companies had to try to sell previous-generation phones in the same market as the iPhone. When other cell phone companies saw the iPhone, they realized the only way to present their phones as competitive was to frame the iPhone as a bundle of features (music player, web browser, games) and say hey, that's not so special, our phones do that stuff too. So you had flip or candy-bar phones that had an app for playing music, a terrible, crippled mobile web browser, maybe email, maybe a weather app, and some built-in games. Calling these phones feature phones is a pretty awful knock, in other words. It means they aren't comparable to smart phones.
bitwize 7y ago
"Smartphone" was originally a Microsoft coinage intended to refer to devices running Windows Mobile, which were in many ways closer to modern smartphones than to feature phones: they had large (for the day) touch screens, could run sophisticated apps like a Web browser or a cut down version of Office, etc. "Feature phones" were at one point the high end of a carrier's phone lineup, as they offered features, such as music playback, a camera, or WAP internet access, that a basic phone did not. Usually they could only run very limited applications, written in things like Java ME, that were available for sale through your cell carrier. When the iPhone was released, feature phones became the new low end. (Pre-iPhone smartphones were quite rare, usually being carried by on the go execs and the like.)

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Can't agree with that - many early androids, the original and current android Blackberry (key2?) are all smartphones, but have or had a keyboard. There's also a selection of crazy expensive Far East smart flip phones with Motorola Razr form factor. All deserve to be called smart phones.

dragonwriter 7y ago

They were called smartphones even after the iPhone launch until the iOS v. Android duopoly was established.

iainmerrick 7y ago
You’re right, before Android took off, it was just “iPhone”.

masklinn 7y ago

> Yes, unless I completely misrecall, these were called “smartphones” before the iPhone launched. You don't misrecall. Even phones without a full keyboard like Nokia's N-series (e.g. the very popular N-70 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N70 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N70) were considered smartphones.

taneq 7y ago

As I understood it, the key difference was being able to add functionality by installing third-party applications. That's what made a smartphone "smart", as opposed to a featurephone which was stuck with only the "features" implemented by the manufacturer. If you're looking for a word to describe phones whose interface consists of a touchscreen with icons and gestures, I'd suggest "phablet".

bryanlarsen 7y ago
Virtually all pre-iphone featurephones could install third-party Java apps.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  And Symbian and Windows CE apps.
kalleboo 7y ago
Most feature phones of the era could install J2ME apps, which had pretty deep APIs (including GPS, hardware 3D graphics, Bluetooth, camera, filesystem, J2ME live wallpapers etc) and on higher-end feature phones could be multitasked. When the iPhone launched, people called it a smartphone even though you couldn't install apps. Multitasking was also years away. "Smartphone" has never meant anything really. Just marketing.
Armisael16 7y ago
Phablet means something distinctly different; it’s a phone that’s so large that it’s verging in being a tablet. Usually thing means a between 5” and 6” screen. By your definition the original iPhone (3.5” screen) was a phablet.
- km3k 7y ago
  Yes, but the size people see as phablet has changed over time. It's basically a size larger than the average person is comfortable with as a phone. Yes, it used to be 5-6", but now it is more in the 6-7.5" range, largely due to the shrinking of bezels allowing larger screens in the same physical size phone.

mclightning 7y ago

I think before iPhone, feature phones were the ones that only run J2ME apps/games. Smartphones were; Symbian, Maemo.

kube-system 7y ago
And (the original) Windows Mobile.
- snaky 7y ago
  That's fascinating how people forget about (the original) Windows Mobile that had 42% of U.S. smartphone market share in 2007.
rusticpenn 7y ago
Maemo was comparable or better than ios at that time...

ollie87 7y ago

Yeah, I had a Nokia 6680 back in 2005 that was classed as smartphone (Symbian after all was a Smartphone OS). It was, of course, absolutely bloody awful and didn't have even enough RAM to do the most basic things. But it was 3G and I had an unlimited plan that I tried to make the most of by watching videos etc on the go. I even used to use it as an MP3 player.

sdenton4 7y ago
Which brings another point: the jio phone is orders of magnitude better than the deaths phones available the last time feature phones were big in the US or Europe.

dkarl 7y ago

After that, the iPhone was clearly something qualitatively different, so people (or rather, journalists, phone stores and the like) started calling the old style “feature phones”. Exactly, "feature phones" were called that because of how the cell phone companies had to try to sell previous-generation phones in the same market as the iPhone. When other cell phone companies saw the iPhone, they realized the only way to present their phones as competitive was to frame the iPhone as a bundle of features (music player, web browser, games) and say hey, that's not so special, our phones do that stuff too. So you had flip or candy-bar phones that had an app for playing music, a terrible, crippled mobile web browser, maybe email, maybe a weather app, and some built-in games. Calling these phones feature phones is a pretty awful knock, in other words. It means they aren't comparable to smart phones.

bitwize 7y ago

"Smartphone" was originally a Microsoft coinage intended to refer to devices running Windows Mobile, which were in many ways closer to modern smartphones than to feature phones: they had large (for the day) touch screens, could run sophisticated apps like a Web browser or a cut down version of Office, etc. "Feature phones" were at one point the high end of a carrier's phone lineup, as they offered features, such as music playback, a camera, or WAP internet access, that a basic phone did not. Usually they could only run very limited applications, written in things like Java ME, that were available for sale through your cell carrier. When the iPhone was released, feature phones became the new low end. (Pre-iPhone smartphones were quite rare, usually being carried by on the go execs and the like.)