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"The year is 2005. There are no smartphones" In Europe, we had Nokia Communicator smartphones since 1996. They had web browsers, and you could install apps. Th

by sampo 13y ago

"The year is 2005. There are no smartphones" In Europe, we had Nokia Communicator smartphones since 1996. They had web browsers, and you could install apps. They never took the market by storm like the iPhone, but they were smartphones allright.

sampo 13y ago
Also the Japanese had very advanced mobile networks from very early on, so I assume there were some pretty smart devices (for their time) much before smartphones got popular in the USA.
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  As far as I know, they had 3G networks way back in 2001. They were the harbinger of profit for carriers here in the US. I remember the carriers were not enthusiastic about putting billions into upgrading their networks to support the faster speeds unless there was some way to monetize it. Thankfully, when news started coming in that NTT DoCoMo was making tons of cash off of data streaming and text messaging, then the carriers were all in.
cygwin98 13y ago
Palm's Treo series were pretty good smartphones back then. Though some braindead CEOs split the company into one hardware and one software company, while neither had the sufficient resources to put a new generation of smartphone OS through.
dexen 13y ago
Sony Ericsson P910i released in 2004 [1]. It had pretty much all the functionality of iPhone, including touch based browser, unified app for SMS/email/MMS, and vibrant software scene. Sprorted handy text inputs -- handwritten recognition, on-screen and detachable hardware keyboard. Granted its camera was pretty awful, but hey! can't have /everything/... I really hate this `Apple invented smartphone' nonsense; it reeks of `The Party had invented helicopter, aeroplanes -- and gradually eveything else' straight from Orwell's 1984. Are we /really/ that gullible? [1] building on P900 (2003) and P800 (2002), which were pretty smart on their own.

by sampo 13y ago

sampo 13y ago

Also the Japanese had very advanced mobile networks from very early on, so I assume there were some pretty smart devices (for their time) much before smartphones got popular in the USA.

at-fates-hands 13y ago
As far as I know, they had 3G networks way back in 2001. They were the harbinger of profit for carriers here in the US. I remember the carriers were not enthusiastic about putting billions into upgrading their networks to support the faster speeds unless there was some way to monetize it. Thankfully, when news started coming in that NTT DoCoMo was making tons of cash off of data streaming and text messaging, then the carriers were all in.

cygwin98 13y ago

Palm's Treo series were pretty good smartphones back then. Though some braindead CEOs split the company into one hardware and one software company, while neither had the sufficient resources to put a new generation of smartphone OS through.

dexen 13y ago

Sony Ericsson P910i released in 2004 [1]. It had pretty much all the functionality of iPhone, including touch based browser, unified app for SMS/email/MMS, and vibrant software scene. Sprorted handy text inputs -- handwritten recognition, on-screen and detachable hardware keyboard. Granted its camera was pretty awful, but hey! can't have /everything/... I really hate this `Apple invented smartphone' nonsense; it reeks of `The Party had invented helicopter, aeroplanes -- and gradually eveything else' straight from Orwell's 1984. Are we /really/ that gullible? [1] building on P900 (2003) and P800 (2002), which were pretty smart on their own.