5 ms·

I'd argue there are several really important telephones: Automatic Electric 34/40 - First one without a subset - Western Electric 500 - First self compensating

by 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.

by Aloha 12y ago

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.