4 ms·

> They did have the Treo line! Thank you for mentioning it. It makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people talk about how Steve Jobs invented the sma

> They did have the Treo line! Thank you for mentioning it. It makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people talk about how Steve Jobs invented the smartphone. I had a series of Treos starting with the Treo 270: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_270 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_270 As somebody who carried a Palm for years, it was so amazing to suddenly have the internet in my pocket. It still is, really.

toast0 3y ago
> Steve Jobs invented the smartphone Yeah, well people are misinformed. Unless there was something for the Newton that turned it into a phone, IBM was first to market in 1994 [1] The IBM Simon made calls, did data, had a paid 3rd party app, etc. Besides Palm, Symbian (Mostly from Nokia, but some other companies made Symbian handsets), RIM's Blackberry, and Microsoft's Windows Mobile (with handsets from many OEMs) had established smartphones before Apple. Of course, the iPhone had much better sales, and changed the market in many ways, but the category was 12ish years old when Apple entered. Hardly inventing or first to market. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon
- Tor3 3y ago
  And, in any case, Japan had tons of what should be considered early smartphones. I was astonished the first time I saw one (and this was obviously before the iPhone). For some reason the iPhone managed to kill off the local Japanese industry though. Japan youngsters (and not only youngsters) are very fashion-oriented, which had more to do with the change than anything else.
  - kalleboo 3y ago
    The problem was the UI on the Japanese smartphones was completely unusable. Just how to go back to the previous menu differed between the different functions. I was there, I migrated my mother-in-law from her “galakei” to an iPhone. She went from barely even being able to take a picture (there was a dialog after each photo asking where to save it!! Wtf) to instant messaging and playing Pokémon Go.
    - cpeterso 3y ago
      I hadn’t heard of Galakei (“Galapagos phones”) before. This article has some history and device breakdown and screenshots: https://www.rappler.com/technology/features/95144-keitai-japanese-flip-phones/ https://www.rappler.com/technology/features/95144-keitai-jap...
finaard 3y ago
With the Centro it was pretty amazing when they dropped a maps application later on - as it didn't have GPS. In built up areas they managed pretty impressive accuracy just by cell tower triangulation.
- lxgr 3y ago
  I'm very split about the Centro. I used one for a while, but after years of Symbian phones, I just couldn't get over how poor the hardware and how dated the OS were in comparison, even though having all of my old Palm OS applications on my phone was great. Nokia's N-series had GPS, Wi-Fi, and good cameras years before that and it was hard to lose all of that; Symbian had proper multitasking, persistent storage, and Unicode support; and between native Symbian and J2ME apps, the software ecosystem wasn't half bad either. Aesthetically, I'll always be a fan of Palm OS, but I couldn't bring myself to actually use it as a daily driver due to all of these limitations.
kalleboo 3y ago
Heck Steve Jobs himself was known to own the Sony Ericsson P800 (Symbian UIQ) long before the iPhone was developed
jawngee 3y ago
Palm 5x with OmniSky modem! I can't count how many useless WAP development conferences my company sent me to.
- lxgr 3y ago
  Speaking of WAP, I actually found Palm.net very interesting. Unfortunately, the Palm VII was only available in the US, and having to dial up via serial cable or infrared using a mobile phone kind of ruined the spontaneous information lookup aspect of it.

toast0 3y ago

> Steve Jobs invented the smartphone Yeah, well people are misinformed. Unless there was something for the Newton that turned it into a phone, IBM was first to market in 1994 [1] The IBM Simon made calls, did data, had a paid 3rd party app, etc. Besides Palm, Symbian (Mostly from Nokia, but some other companies made Symbian handsets), RIM's Blackberry, and Microsoft's Windows Mobile (with handsets from many OEMs) had established smartphones before Apple. Of course, the iPhone had much better sales, and changed the market in many ways, but the category was 12ish years old when Apple entered. Hardly inventing or first to market. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon

Tor3 3y ago
And, in any case, Japan had tons of what should be considered early smartphones. I was astonished the first time I saw one (and this was obviously before the iPhone). For some reason the iPhone managed to kill off the local Japanese industry though. Japan youngsters (and not only youngsters) are very fashion-oriented, which had more to do with the change than anything else.
- kalleboo 3y ago
  The problem was the UI on the Japanese smartphones was completely unusable. Just how to go back to the previous menu differed between the different functions. I was there, I migrated my mother-in-law from her “galakei” to an iPhone. She went from barely even being able to take a picture (there was a dialog after each photo asking where to save it!! Wtf) to instant messaging and playing Pokémon Go.
  - cpeterso 3y ago
    I hadn’t heard of Galakei (“Galapagos phones”) before. This article has some history and device breakdown and screenshots: https://www.rappler.com/technology/features/95144-keitai-japanese-flip-phones/ https://www.rappler.com/technology/features/95144-keitai-jap...

finaard 3y ago

With the Centro it was pretty amazing when they dropped a maps application later on - as it didn't have GPS. In built up areas they managed pretty impressive accuracy just by cell tower triangulation.

lxgr 3y ago
I'm very split about the Centro. I used one for a while, but after years of Symbian phones, I just couldn't get over how poor the hardware and how dated the OS were in comparison, even though having all of my old Palm OS applications on my phone was great. Nokia's N-series had GPS, Wi-Fi, and good cameras years before that and it was hard to lose all of that; Symbian had proper multitasking, persistent storage, and Unicode support; and between native Symbian and J2ME apps, the software ecosystem wasn't half bad either. Aesthetically, I'll always be a fan of Palm OS, but I couldn't bring myself to actually use it as a daily driver due to all of these limitations.

kalleboo 3y ago

Heck Steve Jobs himself was known to own the Sony Ericsson P800 (Symbian UIQ) long before the iPhone was developed

jawngee 3y ago

Palm 5x with OmniSky modem! I can't count how many useless WAP development conferences my company sent me to.

lxgr 3y ago
Speaking of WAP, I actually found Palm.net very interesting. Unfortunately, the Palm VII was only available in the US, and having to dial up via serial cable or infrared using a mobile phone kind of ruined the spontaneous information lookup aspect of it.