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Few things I can think on top of my mind: - You can have a complete new feature without changing your phone - You don't depend on your carrier in order to buy

Few things I can think on top of my mind: - You can have a complete new feature without changing your phone - You don't depend on your carrier in order to buy applications - No crapware (sorry this advantage is available only on non-open devices) - They opened the mobile development industry to indie and small developers

stcredzero 16y ago
I'd say those are four big structural changes.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Except they almost all existed prior to the iPhone: You can have a complete new feature without changing your phone I had this with Windows Mobile seven years ago. Not as frequently as today's phones, but happened -- especially at transition points You don't depend on your carrier in order to buy applications That's a feature phone issue. As I noted before 3rd party app stores have existed for a long time. And for SmartPhones were the dominant way apps were purchased. No crapware (sorry this advantage is available only on non-open devices) If you go back far enough with smartphones they didn't have crapware either. Largely because the carriers hadn't developed any yet. But Apple did get rid of them for the newer generation of smartphones. They opened the mobile development industry to indie and small developers That was also the case with smartphones prior to the iPhone. Look at the apps on PalmOS and Windows Mobile. Most were written by small shops. And because of their deployment models there were a large number of enterprise apps written for them too. In fact in many ways the iPhone introduced Fortune 500 mobile apps. On WinMo and Palm you were a lot less likely to find Disneyland and Walmart apps as you are now with the iPhone.
  - bjelkeman-again 16y ago
    Yes but it was terribly executed before the iPhone and mostly not in one package.
r00fus 16y ago
Don't forget OS upgrades. Pre-iPhone this was limited to the hackers of the world, now it takes a hacker to delay an OS upgrade. The marketing/software side of things is handled entirely by Apple. Quite a substantial shift.

stcredzero 16y ago

I'd say those are four big structural changes.

kenjackson 16y ago
Except they almost all existed prior to the iPhone: You can have a complete new feature without changing your phone I had this with Windows Mobile seven years ago. Not as frequently as today's phones, but happened -- especially at transition points You don't depend on your carrier in order to buy applications That's a feature phone issue. As I noted before 3rd party app stores have existed for a long time. And for SmartPhones were the dominant way apps were purchased. No crapware (sorry this advantage is available only on non-open devices) If you go back far enough with smartphones they didn't have crapware either. Largely because the carriers hadn't developed any yet. But Apple did get rid of them for the newer generation of smartphones. They opened the mobile development industry to indie and small developers That was also the case with smartphones prior to the iPhone. Look at the apps on PalmOS and Windows Mobile. Most were written by small shops. And because of their deployment models there were a large number of enterprise apps written for them too. In fact in many ways the iPhone introduced Fortune 500 mobile apps. On WinMo and Palm you were a lot less likely to find Disneyland and Walmart apps as you are now with the iPhone.
- bjelkeman-again 16y ago
  Yes but it was terribly executed before the iPhone and mostly not in one package.

r00fus 16y ago

Don't forget OS upgrades. Pre-iPhone this was limited to the hackers of the world, now it takes a hacker to delay an OS upgrade. The marketing/software side of things is handled entirely by Apple. Quite a substantial shift.