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> Apple improved on the smartphone significantly but they didn't even come close to creating the market. Smartphones had been around for half a decade before th
by orthoxerox 6y ago
> Apple improved on the smartphone significantly but they didn't even come close to creating the market. Smartphones had been around for half a decade before the iPhone launched.
Pre-iPhone smartphones weren't mass market devices. I remember them well. They were handheld PCs with a phone, marketed as productivity devices.
iPhone was a leisure device. A music player, a phone and an internet browser in one device. They entered a niche market and turned it into a mass market.
- onion2k 6y agoPre-iPhone smartphones weren't mass market devices. I'm not arguing with that. I'm saying that there was already a market and what Apple did was help to grow it. They didn't create "create a completely new market". The iPhone didn't even have that big an impact on smartphone sales to start with - https://www.statista.com/statistics/191985/sales-of-smartphones-in-the-us-since-2005/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/191985/sales-of-smartpho... - the growth in 2006 (year before the iPhone launched) is bigger in percentage terms than the following three years combined.
- starfallg 6y agoMy Symbian based touchscreen smartphone disagrees with your wanton generalisation.