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There was also conventional wisdom which had to be abandoned before the iPhone came out. Nokia phones had 1 week battery life. They were extending it to one mo

There was also conventional wisdom which had to be abandoned before the iPhone came out. Nokia phones had 1 week battery life. They were extending it to one month. The iPhone had a < 1 day battery life. Ultimately consumers decided that given the app experience available on the iPhone they could live with that. This was a bet Nokia would have never made—-they were not in the user interface business. The fact that Apple—who was not in the phone business—-entered their market was bonkers. But once you make your own silicon anything is possible. Plus they had already done the iPod.

Hamuko 3y ago
Nokia phones had a one-week battery life if you weren't using them like a smartphone. We had the Nokia 7650 in our family and if you used it as a camera, the battery life would definitely not be a week. The conventional wisdow that had to be abandoned was that a phone was a brick that you had in your pocket and that did text messages and phone calls, instead of it being a computer that you might sometimes use for text messages and phone calls.
- hasmanean 3y ago
  So the breakthrough happened when Apple shrunk the computer into a phone, not when Nokia grew the phone…? Interesting. I remember writing apps for the iPhone and the biggest hurdle to getting it submitted was sizing the screens for the display variants. There would have been no chance of developing an app for the Nokia ecosystem with all the different screen sizes your app would have to support. Even downloading an app or ringtone required going through all these scammy websites and you had to enter your exact Exact model number and pay somehow…then they would text you a link or something. Apple really cleaned up the ecosystem with the App Store. It made apps safe to download.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    > So the breakthrough happened when Apple shrunk the computer into a phone, not when Nokia grew the phone…? I think the true breakthrough was actually the iPod; the true "first" Apple phone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_ROKR#E1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_ROKR#E1 was a flop, partly because they allowed the various collaboration partners to hamstring its features. The iPhone took everything in-house. > Even downloading an app or ringtone required going through all these scammy websites and you had to enter your exact Exact model number and pay somehow…then they would text you a link or something. > Apple really cleaned up the ecosystem with the App Store. It made apps safe to download. Correct. People (rightly) hate on the restrictive and profiteering nature of the App Store, but the telcos were even worse.
    - ascagnel_ 3y ago
      > Correct. People (rightly) hate on the restrictive and profiteering nature of the App Store, but the telcos were even worse. The now-hotly-debated 30% cut was seen as a reprieve from telco distribution and brick-and-mortar, where the retailer was taking 60-70% of the purchase price.
      - acdha 3y ago
        Not just 60+% of the price but also upfront access fees for the privilege of being listed. I worked for projects with some decent sized companies and they were interested in phone apps right up until what they saw as a proof of concept project was getting offered terms like $50-80k per carrier just for the privilege of being in the carrier’s store. This is still better than when Qualcomm was hawking their mobile Java BREW platform around the turn of the century. We had a mid-tier brewery interested in trying a product locator but Qualcomm wasn’t willing to budge on terms which included a percentage of their total gross revenue – they were still insisting on seeing tax filings up until we walked away!
        xp84 3y ago
        BREW. A pox on that pile of crap. Thanks for reminding me about all that, including the Verizon “Get It Now” store. It does actually make me feel less bitter at the somewhat-less-cynical Apple Way that we have now.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      People could care less about the app stores 30% cut. Developers care. Even then 90% of App Store revenue comes from pay to win games and whales buying loot boxes and coins. You’ll have to excuse me if I can’t manage a tear for them.
      - pjc50 3y ago
        I can't believe I have to write "developers are people too" on Hacker News.
  - guappa 3y ago
    On symbian there was an app store before iphones existed.
bborud 3y ago
I think Apple succeeded because they were outsiders. I worked for a telco 2 years after the iPhone came out and for years I met a lot of people who denied what was happening while it was happening. Because “we know how this works”. 15 years ago a lot of telco execs thought smart phones would be a small niche for the next 10 years. And would play only a minuscule role in “emerging markets”.
- rusticpenn 3y ago
  Nokia N900 was pretty awesome and Maemo was a great OS. Unfortunately killed by internal politics.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    On of the big tech letdowns in my life. I was excited about the N900, but to young to really drop that amount of cash on a new fancy phone and I didn't want to buy the first product of the platform. But then it just sort of died. There was one more release but by then it was clear where it was going. It wasn't even released widely. Such a sad end.
    - seba_dos1 3y ago
      I'm not sure if I'd call a phone that served me well for a decade a "letdown". There were hardly any phones around worth switching to from N900 for this whole time.
      - tekla 3y ago
        The N900 and Maemo was almost immediately abandoned following launch (<2 Years). Not even Nokia cared
        seba_dos1 3y ago
        ...which didn't matter at all because the community has been doing a pretty good job with CSSU and it was only several years later when it started to truly show its age.
badgersnake 3y ago
You’re literally describing the Nokia N900. 1 days battery, many apps. They did everything, which as the article says was part of the problem.
- loosescrews 3y ago
  Mine lasted close to a week on a charge. It was a great device.
  - seba_dos1 3y ago
    Mine still lasts 4 days or so.
    - badgersnake 3y ago
      That’s impressive. Mine barely lasted a day. Perhaps I had a duff battery.
- jakjak123 3y ago
  I had the N900, but I think it was only released 2.5 years after the first iPhone.
kipchak 3y ago
I agree the user interface was a huge difference, but Nokia did have high spec-ed and priced battery burners like the N95. They even sold quite well, for example over their lifetimes there were 10 million N95s sold and 6 million iPhone 1s.
- IshKebab 3y ago
  I mean, presumably because it was the last smartphone Nokia made and Nokia was an established name, whereas the iPhone was new and the iPhone 3G was released after only a year. In other words, it didn't sell more because it was actually viable competition. It sold more because of brand momentum and because it was on sale for longer.
  - fckgw 3y ago
    iPhone was also only available in the US and only on one carrier (and not the largest one). N95 was worldwide.
  - kipchak 3y ago
    Nokia kept making smartphones after the N95 in the "nseries", such as for example the N900 in 2009. I just mean to say there was appetite for 1 day devices with lots of apps and features before the iPhone came around - keep in mind the iOS appstore was released a year after the iPhone's launch, initially "apps" was a feature on the N95s side.[1] Also while the N95 stuck around for a while, the N95 did sell more rapidly than the first iPhone. Assuming the dates Wikipedia uses are accurate the N95 reached 7 million units at the end of 2007 after being released in March of that year, and then 10 million by end of Q1 2008. The iPhone was released June 2007 and discontinued July 2008 and sold 6.1 million units. That being said availability of the first iPhone was limited outside the US and it was limited to Cingular, and the N95 wasn't sold via carriers in the US. [1]https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-iphone-vs-nokia-n95/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-iphone-vs-nokia-n95/
    - acdha 3y ago
      I think the carrier locking was a very significant factor for comparing early phone sales: you were looking at a hefty easily termination to switch and two year contracts were common so the average American was probably looking at a year before they could switch to any carrier’s exclusive device.
Gravityloss 3y ago
Nokia had multiple internet tablets running Linux. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_770_Internet_Tablet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_770_Internet_Tablet This was developed to a phone os. Nokia didn't do great choices but the criticism could be historical...
bemusedthrow75 3y ago
Apple didn’t make (or design) much of the silicon in the original iPhones, I think? They didn’t use their own SoC for six years; it was a custom order Samsung before that. And oddly enough the (pre Touch) iPod wasn’t their chip or even their embedded OS. It was a thir party OS called Pixo that they perpetually licensed (or bought, it’s not clear from the outside; it may have been merely developed under contract, but Pixo had specific visible credits in the original iPod UI) I am not saying that Apple don’t make entirely different product and hardware bets (and I have to say I think it’s a shame there aren’t more battery-life-optimising competitors, but the bright screens and the flashy UIs always win; see Pebble).
kmmlng 3y ago
I remember this transition and funnily enough, the shorter battery life actually made for better user experience. Before, your battery would run out at some point. It was always kind of unexpected and then you couldn't use your phone. With smartphones, it became easier, because you could (and needed to) just charge it every night and you would be fine. It allowed you to set up a routine.

Hamuko 3y ago

Nokia phones had a one-week battery life if you weren't using them like a smartphone. We had the Nokia 7650 in our family and if you used it as a camera, the battery life would definitely not be a week. The conventional wisdow that had to be abandoned was that a phone was a brick that you had in your pocket and that did text messages and phone calls, instead of it being a computer that you might sometimes use for text messages and phone calls.

hasmanean 3y ago
So the breakthrough happened when Apple shrunk the computer into a phone, not when Nokia grew the phone…? Interesting. I remember writing apps for the iPhone and the biggest hurdle to getting it submitted was sizing the screens for the display variants. There would have been no chance of developing an app for the Nokia ecosystem with all the different screen sizes your app would have to support. Even downloading an app or ringtone required going through all these scammy websites and you had to enter your exact Exact model number and pay somehow…then they would text you a link or something. Apple really cleaned up the ecosystem with the App Store. It made apps safe to download.
- pjc50 3y ago
  > So the breakthrough happened when Apple shrunk the computer into a phone, not when Nokia grew the phone…? I think the true breakthrough was actually the iPod; the true "first" Apple phone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_ROKR#E1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_ROKR#E1 was a flop, partly because they allowed the various collaboration partners to hamstring its features. The iPhone took everything in-house. > Even downloading an app or ringtone required going through all these scammy websites and you had to enter your exact Exact model number and pay somehow…then they would text you a link or something. > Apple really cleaned up the ecosystem with the App Store. It made apps safe to download. Correct. People (rightly) hate on the restrictive and profiteering nature of the App Store, but the telcos were even worse.
  - ascagnel_ 3y ago
    > Correct. People (rightly) hate on the restrictive and profiteering nature of the App Store, but the telcos were even worse. The now-hotly-debated 30% cut was seen as a reprieve from telco distribution and brick-and-mortar, where the retailer was taking 60-70% of the purchase price.
    - acdha 3y ago
      Not just 60+% of the price but also upfront access fees for the privilege of being listed. I worked for projects with some decent sized companies and they were interested in phone apps right up until what they saw as a proof of concept project was getting offered terms like $50-80k per carrier just for the privilege of being in the carrier’s store. This is still better than when Qualcomm was hawking their mobile Java BREW platform around the turn of the century. We had a mid-tier brewery interested in trying a product locator but Qualcomm wasn’t willing to budge on terms which included a percentage of their total gross revenue – they were still insisting on seeing tax filings up until we walked away!
      - xp84 3y ago
        BREW. A pox on that pile of crap. Thanks for reminding me about all that, including the Verizon “Get It Now” store. It does actually make me feel less bitter at the somewhat-less-cynical Apple Way that we have now.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    People could care less about the app stores 30% cut. Developers care. Even then 90% of App Store revenue comes from pay to win games and whales buying loot boxes and coins. You’ll have to excuse me if I can’t manage a tear for them.
    - pjc50 3y ago
      I can't believe I have to write "developers are people too" on Hacker News.
- guappa 3y ago
  On symbian there was an app store before iphones existed.

bborud 3y ago

I think Apple succeeded because they were outsiders. I worked for a telco 2 years after the iPhone came out and for years I met a lot of people who denied what was happening while it was happening. Because “we know how this works”. 15 years ago a lot of telco execs thought smart phones would be a small niche for the next 10 years. And would play only a minuscule role in “emerging markets”.

rusticpenn 3y ago
Nokia N900 was pretty awesome and Maemo was a great OS. Unfortunately killed by internal politics.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  On of the big tech letdowns in my life. I was excited about the N900, but to young to really drop that amount of cash on a new fancy phone and I didn't want to buy the first product of the platform. But then it just sort of died. There was one more release but by then it was clear where it was going. It wasn't even released widely. Such a sad end.
  - seba_dos1 3y ago
    I'm not sure if I'd call a phone that served me well for a decade a "letdown". There were hardly any phones around worth switching to from N900 for this whole time.
    - tekla 3y ago
      The N900 and Maemo was almost immediately abandoned following launch (<2 Years). Not even Nokia cared
      - seba_dos1 3y ago
        ...which didn't matter at all because the community has been doing a pretty good job with CSSU and it was only several years later when it started to truly show its age.

badgersnake 3y ago

You’re literally describing the Nokia N900. 1 days battery, many apps. They did everything, which as the article says was part of the problem.

loosescrews 3y ago
Mine lasted close to a week on a charge. It was a great device.
- seba_dos1 3y ago
  Mine still lasts 4 days or so.
  - badgersnake 3y ago
    That’s impressive. Mine barely lasted a day. Perhaps I had a duff battery.
jakjak123 3y ago
I had the N900, but I think it was only released 2.5 years after the first iPhone.

kipchak 3y ago

I agree the user interface was a huge difference, but Nokia did have high spec-ed and priced battery burners like the N95. They even sold quite well, for example over their lifetimes there were 10 million N95s sold and 6 million iPhone 1s.

IshKebab 3y ago
I mean, presumably because it was the last smartphone Nokia made and Nokia was an established name, whereas the iPhone was new and the iPhone 3G was released after only a year. In other words, it didn't sell more because it was actually viable competition. It sold more because of brand momentum and because it was on sale for longer.
- fckgw 3y ago
  iPhone was also only available in the US and only on one carrier (and not the largest one). N95 was worldwide.
- kipchak 3y ago
  Nokia kept making smartphones after the N95 in the "nseries", such as for example the N900 in 2009. I just mean to say there was appetite for 1 day devices with lots of apps and features before the iPhone came around - keep in mind the iOS appstore was released a year after the iPhone's launch, initially "apps" was a feature on the N95s side.[1] Also while the N95 stuck around for a while, the N95 did sell more rapidly than the first iPhone. Assuming the dates Wikipedia uses are accurate the N95 reached 7 million units at the end of 2007 after being released in March of that year, and then 10 million by end of Q1 2008. The iPhone was released June 2007 and discontinued July 2008 and sold 6.1 million units. That being said availability of the first iPhone was limited outside the US and it was limited to Cingular, and the N95 wasn't sold via carriers in the US. [1]https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-iphone-vs-nokia-n95/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-iphone-vs-nokia-n95/
  - acdha 3y ago
    I think the carrier locking was a very significant factor for comparing early phone sales: you were looking at a hefty easily termination to switch and two year contracts were common so the average American was probably looking at a year before they could switch to any carrier’s exclusive device.

Gravityloss 3y ago

Nokia had multiple internet tablets running Linux. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_770_Internet_Tablet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_770_Internet_Tablet This was developed to a phone os. Nokia didn't do great choices but the criticism could be historical...

bemusedthrow75 3y ago

Apple didn’t make (or design) much of the silicon in the original iPhones, I think? They didn’t use their own SoC for six years; it was a custom order Samsung before that. And oddly enough the (pre Touch) iPod wasn’t their chip or even their embedded OS. It was a thir party OS called Pixo that they perpetually licensed (or bought, it’s not clear from the outside; it may have been merely developed under contract, but Pixo had specific visible credits in the original iPod UI) I am not saying that Apple don’t make entirely different product and hardware bets (and I have to say I think it’s a shame there aren’t more battery-life-optimising competitors, but the bright screens and the flashy UIs always win; see Pebble).

kmmlng 3y ago

I remember this transition and funnily enough, the shorter battery life actually made for better user experience. Before, your battery would run out at some point. It was always kind of unexpected and then you couldn't use your phone. With smartphones, it became easier, because you could (and needed to) just charge it every night and you would be fine. It allowed you to set up a routine.