In 2007, putting WiFi and cellular in the same radio stack was a real challenge. The iPhone was one of the first phones to have both radios in it — a handful of

In 2007, putting WiFi and cellular in the same radio stack was a real challenge. The iPhone was one of the first phones to have both radios in it — a handful of other devices did too, but it was really rare. Heck, I remember it took years for BlackBerry to successfully ship a phone with both 3G and WiFi (as opposed to having to choose between WiFi and 2G or only a 3G connection). The big selling point of the first Kindle was the idea that you could access the store to download stuff anywhere. WiFi wasn’t ubiquitous like it is now (and even now, it isn’t as ubiquitous as I think we all would have hoped), which made having a free 2G connection really nice, especially when outdoors in areas that the E Ink display really shined.