Posted September 8, 2009 at 7:04am by iClarified · 8080 views
CounterNotions has posted an interesting article discussing what it was like before Apple introduced the iPhone.
They list 25 differences from before the iPhone: 1. Carriers ruled the industry with an iron fist 2. To access carriers networks handset makers capitulated everything 3. Carriers dictated phone designs, features, apps, prices, marketing, advertising and branding 4. Phones were reduced to cheap, disposable lures for carriers service contracts 5. There was no revenue sharing between carriers and manufacturers 6. There was no notion of phone networks becoming dumb pipes anytime soon 7. Affordable, unlimited data plans as standard were unheard of 8. A phone that would entice people to switch networks by the millions was a pipe dream 9. Mobile devices were phones first and last, not usable handheld computers 10. Even the smartest phones didnt have seamless WiFi integration 11. Without Visual Voice Mail, messages couldnt be managed non-linearly 12. There were no manufacturer owned and operated on-the-phone application stores as the sole source 13. An on-the-phone store having 65,000 apps downloaded nearly 2 billion times was not on anyones radar screen 14. Low-cost, high-volume app pricing strategy with a 70/30 split didnt exist 15. Robust one-click in-app transactions were unknown 16. There was no efficient, large scale, consistent and lucrative mobile app market for developers large and small 17. Buttons, keys, joysticks, sliders anything but the screen was the focus of phones 18. Phones didnt come with huge 3.5″ touch screens 19. Pervasive multitouch, gesture-based UI was science fiction 20. Actually usable, multi-language, multitouch virtual keyboards on phones didnt exist 21. Integrated sensors like accelerometers and proximity detectors had no place in phones 22. Phones could never compete in 3D/gaming with dedicated portable consoles 23. iPod-class audio/video players on mobiles didnt exist 24. No phone had ever offered a desktop-like web browser experience 25. Sophisticated SDKs and phones were strangers to each other