I’ve had a fair number of phones over the years. I have fond memories of my first mobile … a Nokia Orange 5.1 which was some 14 years ago now. Back then phones were just that. Phones. A device to make and receive a phone call. Store some contacts and (later on) send a text message. They did a simple job, but they did it well.
Since then things (and phones themselves) have changed significantly. 6 years ago I got my first smartphone, the Orange SPV C500, which ran Windows Mobile. Since then I’ve had an iPhone, Android phone, and am now using a HTC Mozart Windows Phone 7. As much as I enjoy winding people up about their phone choice, I am not at all a zealot, and have equal respect for Apple, Google and Microsoft.
The iPhone is well regarded as revolutionary, and I mostly agree with that. However, the component parts of the iPhone kind of existed beforehand. The Nokia Communicator, which has been around since the 90s, was really the 1st “smart phone” and bough the idea of applications in a phone. The Palm V brought an icon based touch screen, where additional application can be combined. What Apple did really well was take the best of devices, improve and combine them, and release them as a really slick device.