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Ryokurin
Jul 14, 2001

Wanna Die?

Install Gentoo posted:

So? They were more popular then PDAs had been, and we'd already seen "cell phones in general" reach billions sold by that time. As well already knowing that regular computers had taken off.

The only question back then was "when will everyone have a smartphone" not "will smartphones ever be popular". Heck at that point a lot of features once considered exclusive to smartphones - like real data connections, browsers beyond WAP, music playback, screens that could actually show something besides text - had started appearing on regular phones.


They had been saying that for years by that point, and like you said features were starting to overlap. But no one saw items like music streaming or a full featured browser as a potential game change. The need for data was still pretty much seen as something that only business people would need and if a consumer needed it, it was for WAP or IM. People also forget the iPhone was $600 back then. That's why no one took it seriously. Hell even today that price for a unlocked phone makes people cringe.

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Install Gentoo
Aug 4, 2011

Trophy says:
~death to capitalism~
;3 ;3 ;3 ;3 ;3 ;3 ;3


Ryokurin posted:

They had been saying that for years by that point, and like you said features were starting to overlap. But no one saw items like music streaming or a full featured browser as a potential game change. The need for data was still pretty much seen as something that only business people would need and if a consumer needed it, it was for WAP or IM. People also forget the iPhone was $600 back then. That's why no one took it seriously. Hell even today that price for a unlocked phone makes people cringe.

Again, all of that was about "it will take 13 years for smartphones to be everywhere" instead of "it will take 3 years".

Also the iPhone still costs that much if you buy it outright. Tons of regular phones then and now cost $300-$400 easily if you bought them unsubsidized. Like, duh, phones costing a lot of money was nothing new. In the 90s getting a plain old cell phone unsubsidized could easily run you more than $1000.

The iPhone 2G wasn't taken seriously because not only did it cost as much as all the other unsubsidized smartphones, it also did not have any apps or 3G service but still cost as much as devices that did. Which is unsurprisingly why the iPhone 3G released a few moths after the app store finally opened sold a shitload better.

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