8 ms·

An iconic phone before the iPhone

31 points by todayiamme 12y ago

Aloha 12y ago
I'd argue there are several really important telephones: Automatic Electric 34/40 - First one without a subset - Western Electric 500 - First self compensating network - Western Electric 1500/2500 - First with TouchTone - Motorola StarTac - First Clamshell Phone - Apple iPhone - First Modern Smartphone. Out of all of these landmarks, the AE 34/40, WE 500/1500/2500 and the Motorola StarTac are the most important ones. The AE 34/40 was the first what we'd identify as a modern phone in appearance, the WE 500/1500/2500, is so iconic that anyone could identify it as a telephone, it also was a huge leap forward in transmission quality, and the StarTac was the first of billions of clamshell phone, the thing most identifiable as a cell phone to anyone shown an abstract drawing. I'd argue that the 500 is more iconic however than anything to come before or after it.
- pavlov 12y ago
  IMO the Nokia-style "candy bar" phone is the iconic mobile phone design globally. I don't think I've ever seen a "generic cell phone" drawing that would be a clamshell design; usually it's something that looks vaguely like a late '90s Nokia with the antenna stub.
  - Aloha 12y ago
    Fair, fair.
  - amirmc 12y ago
    More specifically, I'd say that the Nokia 3210 [1] was one of the most iconic and recognisable mobile phones. It was the one that came with Snake and created the fad for comparing high-scores amongst friends. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3210 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3210
    - zem 12y ago
      right, when i saw "iconic phone" my first thought was the nokia 1100, but the 3210 is indeed more deserving of the title
    - Ntrails 12y ago
      I bought a 3210 almost entirely for the game "snake", and the ability to play it during the bus ride to school. But overall it was a really good piece of kit. Robust, easy to use, etc.
  - eloisant 12y ago
    It depends where you lived. In Europe the Nokia 3310 was king, but in Japan clamshell were all over the place.
    - sudowhodoido 12y ago
      I'm not ashamed to say that I'd be using a 3310 now but you can't get reliable batteries any more. That leaves only later Nokia dumbphones which are the same in spirit but inferior in usability.
- Zecc 12y ago
  I miss clamshell phones. I miss the satisfaction of ending a call by folding the phone shut. Where's the dramatism in ending an angry call with a gentle tap on a virtual button on a touchscreen?
  - yardie 12y ago
    I was just butt-dialed this morning (2am) by a friend at a concert in Morocco. Something that never happened with clamshells.
- laumars 12y ago
  > Apple iPhone - First Modern Smartphone. Depends on your definition of "modern". The iPhone wasn't the first to support apps (Windows Mobile / CE handsets had been around for a while, but they weren't nice to use as a "phone". Also plenty of feature phones, eg most of Sony Ericsson's pre-Android range- supported apps too). If you meant "the first smart-phone form-factor", then there were Nokia and sony handsets long before the iPhone. But they weren't all that great from many of the accounts I heard (which always put me off buying one). Blackberry and Palm (remember them) also had some great offerings for their era too. If you meant the "first with capacitive touch screen", then LG beat Apple to the market with an iPhone-like device by a few months. However Apple's iPhone is still the handset we all remember as being the groundbreaker. I don't know if that's because Apple PR team have done a wonderful job rewriting history; or because Apple happened to build the most successful product of that era that it made other products before it seem forgettable. Maybe a bit of both. But in any case, I think if you want to credit the iPhone for it's importance in history then it's only fair to credit the numerous other handsets which preceded it and pioneered the various different technologies and paradigms that Apple then went on and merge together so effectively.
  - Aloha 12y ago
    Apple was the first one to put all of those things together in a single package that really worked well - thats what I mean by first modern :-P
    - laumars 12y ago
      Well that's now more a question of personal bias / preference than something that can be defined as cold, hard fact. What worked for you might not have been someone else's preferred method of using a smart phone. As well polished as the iPhone was, I found many of its design implimentations worked against the way I liked to use a smart phone. And I think the fact that Symbian (amongst others) outsold iOS for the first few years of the iPhone's life would suggest that I wasn't alone. So I think even by that measure, it's still unfair to exclude other handsets of the same generation which were just as popular. But then I guess history is written by the victors, not the other pioneers who've since fallen by the wayside.
- golemotron 12y ago
  I'd argue that the Motorola Razr V3 was iconic. In the middle 2000s, nothing else looked like it.
  - erikpukinskis 12y ago
    It's the same basic form as the StarTAC.
    - golemotron 12y ago
      Fair enough. I think that the the Razr was just the epitome of clamshell stylistically.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  >"the WE 500/1500/2500, is so iconic that anyone could identify it as a telephone" // Went to museum this year, 8 year old: "what's that?" <pointing at rotary-dial telephone>. Even our home phone is a wireless candy-bar shape. I was surprised, definite 'OMG how old am I?'-moment. AE34, http://www.telephonearchive.com/phones/ae/ae34.html http://www.telephonearchive.com/phones/ae/ae34.html, for anyone else who is curious. As a complete novice to the topic, the AE34 seems to lead the form of the WE500, why do you feel the later is the more iconic? What tech gave it the "huge leap forward"?
  - Aloha 12y ago
    Electrically the 500 is much much more important than the 34/40 - every modern landline phone has something in common electrically with the 500 set.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  "first modern smartphone" is a reasonable description, but I would say that Blackberry was the first modern smartphone and iPhone was the first mainstream smartphone.
rbinv 12y ago
> Although only ten buttons are needed for today's telephone needs, thw two "extra" buttons prepare these sets for future communications services. I wonder what they had in mind? Have there been any noteworthy uses except for stuff like signaling the end of an input?
- Aloha 12y ago
  The first touch tone phones only had 10 buttons, FWIW.
- Sanddancer 12y ago
  In the US, the * key was used for a lot of shortcodes with various add-on phone services -- turning on/off caller id visibility, disabling call waiting for one call, calling the number that dialled you back, etc. However, in general, the keys were designed to be used to access computer services where you needed various delimiters. Of note here is that the DTMF system was originally designed with a fourth row of keys, A-D. These were supposed to be used for general access of menus instead of the now traditional 1-9, but they only ever really got used for the military Autovon [1] network for setting priorities. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autovon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autovon
  - Aloha 12y ago
    Not was, is, the vertical service codes still work - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_service_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_service_code
twelve40 12y ago
Very informative for those of us like myself who didn't know touch tone was around since the 60's, but damn is that website stuffed with ads. I had to click 3 close/collapse and then lower the browser window to cover up the footer bar crap just to read the post without getting a headache. Note to self, never overdo the ads like that.
rvschuilenburg 12y ago
Why was I expecting a post about the Nokia 3310?
- zyx321 12y ago
  Because the Nokia 3310 (and to a lesser degree the 3210) were the iconic devices of the cellphone, just like the iPhone 4 (with iOS 6 or earlier) is probably the most iconic phone of the smartphone era. And even if you were told to think of a landline telephone, the image in your head would probably look less like the Trimline and more like a late-era Bell, the kind that was chosen to represent the Washington-Moscow hotline.
kalleboo 12y ago
In Sweden our most iconic-looking phone was the Ericofon "Cobra". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericofon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericofon
jack-r-abbit 12y ago
I've had several phones with this design. One of them was made of clear plastic so you could see the components inside... and had some LEDs that lit up when it rang. But my favorite was just a plain old version that I hacked apart and installed the components into a shoe.

31 points by todayiamme 12y ago

Aloha 12y ago

I'd argue there are several really important telephones: Automatic Electric 34/40 - First one without a subset - Western Electric 500 - First self compensating network - Western Electric 1500/2500 - First with TouchTone - Motorola StarTac - First Clamshell Phone - Apple iPhone - First Modern Smartphone. Out of all of these landmarks, the AE 34/40, WE 500/1500/2500 and the Motorola StarTac are the most important ones. The AE 34/40 was the first what we'd identify as a modern phone in appearance, the WE 500/1500/2500, is so iconic that anyone could identify it as a telephone, it also was a huge leap forward in transmission quality, and the StarTac was the first of billions of clamshell phone, the thing most identifiable as a cell phone to anyone shown an abstract drawing. I'd argue that the 500 is more iconic however than anything to come before or after it.

pavlov 12y ago
IMO the Nokia-style "candy bar" phone is the iconic mobile phone design globally. I don't think I've ever seen a "generic cell phone" drawing that would be a clamshell design; usually it's something that looks vaguely like a late '90s Nokia with the antenna stub.
- Aloha 12y ago
  Fair, fair.
- amirmc 12y ago
  More specifically, I'd say that the Nokia 3210 [1] was one of the most iconic and recognisable mobile phones. It was the one that came with Snake and created the fad for comparing high-scores amongst friends. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3210 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3210
  - zem 12y ago
    right, when i saw "iconic phone" my first thought was the nokia 1100, but the 3210 is indeed more deserving of the title
  - Ntrails 12y ago
    I bought a 3210 almost entirely for the game "snake", and the ability to play it during the bus ride to school. But overall it was a really good piece of kit. Robust, easy to use, etc.
- eloisant 12y ago
  It depends where you lived. In Europe the Nokia 3310 was king, but in Japan clamshell were all over the place.
  - sudowhodoido 12y ago
    I'm not ashamed to say that I'd be using a 3310 now but you can't get reliable batteries any more. That leaves only later Nokia dumbphones which are the same in spirit but inferior in usability.
Zecc 12y ago
I miss clamshell phones. I miss the satisfaction of ending a call by folding the phone shut. Where's the dramatism in ending an angry call with a gentle tap on a virtual button on a touchscreen?
- yardie 12y ago
  I was just butt-dialed this morning (2am) by a friend at a concert in Morocco. Something that never happened with clamshells.
laumars 12y ago
> Apple iPhone - First Modern Smartphone. Depends on your definition of "modern". The iPhone wasn't the first to support apps (Windows Mobile / CE handsets had been around for a while, but they weren't nice to use as a "phone". Also plenty of feature phones, eg most of Sony Ericsson's pre-Android range- supported apps too). If you meant "the first smart-phone form-factor", then there were Nokia and sony handsets long before the iPhone. But they weren't all that great from many of the accounts I heard (which always put me off buying one). Blackberry and Palm (remember them) also had some great offerings for their era too. If you meant the "first with capacitive touch screen", then LG beat Apple to the market with an iPhone-like device by a few months. However Apple's iPhone is still the handset we all remember as being the groundbreaker. I don't know if that's because Apple PR team have done a wonderful job rewriting history; or because Apple happened to build the most successful product of that era that it made other products before it seem forgettable. Maybe a bit of both. But in any case, I think if you want to credit the iPhone for it's importance in history then it's only fair to credit the numerous other handsets which preceded it and pioneered the various different technologies and paradigms that Apple then went on and merge together so effectively.
- Aloha 12y ago
  Apple was the first one to put all of those things together in a single package that really worked well - thats what I mean by first modern :-P
  - laumars 12y ago
    Well that's now more a question of personal bias / preference than something that can be defined as cold, hard fact. What worked for you might not have been someone else's preferred method of using a smart phone. As well polished as the iPhone was, I found many of its design implimentations worked against the way I liked to use a smart phone. And I think the fact that Symbian (amongst others) outsold iOS for the first few years of the iPhone's life would suggest that I wasn't alone. So I think even by that measure, it's still unfair to exclude other handsets of the same generation which were just as popular. But then I guess history is written by the victors, not the other pioneers who've since fallen by the wayside.
golemotron 12y ago
I'd argue that the Motorola Razr V3 was iconic. In the middle 2000s, nothing else looked like it.
- erikpukinskis 12y ago
  It's the same basic form as the StarTAC.
  - golemotron 12y ago
    Fair enough. I think that the the Razr was just the epitome of clamshell stylistically.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
>"the WE 500/1500/2500, is so iconic that anyone could identify it as a telephone" // Went to museum this year, 8 year old: "what's that?" <pointing at rotary-dial telephone>. Even our home phone is a wireless candy-bar shape. I was surprised, definite 'OMG how old am I?'-moment. AE34, http://www.telephonearchive.com/phones/ae/ae34.html http://www.telephonearchive.com/phones/ae/ae34.html, for anyone else who is curious. As a complete novice to the topic, the AE34 seems to lead the form of the WE500, why do you feel the later is the more iconic? What tech gave it the "huge leap forward"?
- Aloha 12y ago
  Electrically the 500 is much much more important than the 34/40 - every modern landline phone has something in common electrically with the 500 set.
seanflyon 12y ago
"first modern smartphone" is a reasonable description, but I would say that Blackberry was the first modern smartphone and iPhone was the first mainstream smartphone.

rbinv 12y ago

> Although only ten buttons are needed for today's telephone needs, thw two "extra" buttons prepare these sets for future communications services. I wonder what they had in mind? Have there been any noteworthy uses except for stuff like signaling the end of an input?

Aloha 12y ago
The first touch tone phones only had 10 buttons, FWIW.
Sanddancer 12y ago
In the US, the * key was used for a lot of shortcodes with various add-on phone services -- turning on/off caller id visibility, disabling call waiting for one call, calling the number that dialled you back, etc. However, in general, the keys were designed to be used to access computer services where you needed various delimiters. Of note here is that the DTMF system was originally designed with a fourth row of keys, A-D. These were supposed to be used for general access of menus instead of the now traditional 1-9, but they only ever really got used for the military Autovon [1] network for setting priorities. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autovon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autovon
- Aloha 12y ago
  Not was, is, the vertical service codes still work - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_service_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_service_code

twelve40 12y ago

Very informative for those of us like myself who didn't know touch tone was around since the 60's, but damn is that website stuffed with ads. I had to click 3 close/collapse and then lower the browser window to cover up the footer bar crap just to read the post without getting a headache. Note to self, never overdo the ads like that.

rvschuilenburg 12y ago

Why was I expecting a post about the Nokia 3310?

zyx321 12y ago
Because the Nokia 3310 (and to a lesser degree the 3210) were the iconic devices of the cellphone, just like the iPhone 4 (with iOS 6 or earlier) is probably the most iconic phone of the smartphone era. And even if you were told to think of a landline telephone, the image in your head would probably look less like the Trimline and more like a late-era Bell, the kind that was chosen to represent the Washington-Moscow hotline.

kalleboo 12y ago

In Sweden our most iconic-looking phone was the Ericofon "Cobra". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericofon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericofon

jack-r-abbit 12y ago

I've had several phones with this design. One of them was made of clear plastic so you could see the components inside... and had some LEDs that lit up when it rang. But my favorite was just a plain old version that I hacked apart and installed the components into a shoe.