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Yes. Before the iPhone, the only smartphones anyone really had were Blackberrys. And those weren't "slabs of glass".
by colejohnson66 5y ago
Yes. Before the iPhone, the only smartphones anyone really had were Blackberrys. And those weren't "slabs of glass".
- netizen-936824 5y agoReally? How about palm or pocketpc? There were mobile phone versions before iPhone iirc
- endisneigh 5y agoWhich ones were slabs of glass?
- netizen-936824 5y agoMost of them? The face buttons were usually minimal, with 2-4 buttons plus maybe a d-pad >"The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 as a rebranding of the Palm-size PC category. Some of these devices also had integrated phone and data capabilities, which were called Pocket PC Phone Edition or simply "Smartphone"." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_PC https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_PC >"The first-generation iPhone was announced by then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007. " https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone
- endisneigh 5y agobut... that's not true. The HTC HD2, arguably the best Windows Mobile phone, wasn't a slab of glass - it was plastic, just like most (if not all) of the flagships.
- netizen-936824 5y agoAre you seriously making the distinction based on a plastic body vs glass body That's just drawing an arbitrary line in the sand not based on technological innovation so you can day "apple wuz first" These devices are defined by the amount of screen and the touch interaction combined with mobile connectivity, not by plastic vs glass body Also, the iPhone 1 had an aluminum back, not glass so your point doesn't even make sense: >"The iPhone's back cover is made out of brushed aluminum, a soft metal" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation)
- endisneigh 5y agoThe original comment was: > Apple invented the modern slab-of-glass smartphone industry Not sure what you're going on about.
- netizen-936824 5y agoFrom my understanding "slab of glass" refers to the all-screen design. Not the material of the back cover
- moron4hire 5y agoThe original iPhone still had a front-surface, physical button
- netizen-936824 5y agoDidn't numerous iPhones have front home buttons until recently? But I think this helps my point, in that the iPhone was only a marginal improvement on already existing tech instead of the "first" to do whatever
- fnord123 5y agoMeanwhile, outside of the US...
- rospaya 5y ago> Before the iPhone, the only smartphones anyone really had were Blackberrys Because the US sucked for mobile phones until Apple beat the providers into submission. The rest of the world used Nokia or Sony Ericsson smartphones that had multitasking, apps, web browsers and any other definition of a smartphone. That's not counting Palm, Windows Mobile and others.
- jimbokun 5y agoMoving to an on screen keyboard in exchange for more screen real estate when not typing was a big market risk. Not everyone was convinced that consumers would prefer that to a physical keyboard. Palm had it's stylus and simplified hand writing recognition, which was also a very different approach.
- raldi 5y agoHow many of them had a keyless multitouch interface before 2007?
- kuschku 5y agoQuite a few, LG even won design awards for their multitouch keyless phones with app store before the iPhone was released.
- raldi 5y agoIf there were "quite a few", could you name one? If you're alluding to the LG Prada, it didn't have multitouch — no pinch zooming, no flick scrolling, etc.
- kuschku 5y agoThe LG Prada and the other phones which later led to the KP500/501 and similar phones (I had them as teen) had semi-multitouch. It could handle two fingers, as long as one of them stayed in place and only the other one moved. That’s how it implemented something kinda like pinch zooming and scrolling. Android in fact copied the same method for its early touchscreen devices and supported it until relatively recently.