On 25/07/2019 07:56, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 23:36:50 on Wed, 24 Jul
2019, bob remarked:
Recliner wrote:
Clank wrote:
Basil Jet Wrote in message:
Thanks for that, but it doesn't change the fact that earphones with a
microphone in the cable *are* a mobile phone accessory.

I use mine with my laptop for Skype/Teams calls and the like as
often as I use them with my phone.Â* (Actually, if it's the
microphone that is suddenly important, far more - I make voice
calls on my phone once in a blue moon.)

Yes, it's probably time to resurrect the old, prematurely-coined, PDA
term
for what we still call phones.

The modern smart phone rolls the functions of PDA, mobile phone and
personal music player together into a single device, onto which is added
internet data connectivity. If you go back and look at the presentation
where Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone he makes a big play on this
bringing together of multiple previous category of devices into a single
thing.

If anything, the iPhone is an iPod-Touch with a phone added.

Given the iPod touch was released later, it's more like an iPhone with
the phone removed.

In message

t, at 11:02:09 on Sun, 28 Jul 2019, Jeremy Double
remarked:
Smartphones existed before the iPhone. I had 2 HP smartphones, each
running a version of Windows Mobile.

It meant that I only needed to carry one device, rather than a PDA and
separate mobile phone.

The first HP one was great (although much thicker than an iPhone) until it
died suddenly, but the second one, with a slide-out mini keyboard, which
looked great on paper, was c**p. That was when I switched to the iPhone.

The Nokia 9000 Communicator (1996) was perhaps the
smartphone-that-got-away as far as I was concerned. Never could quite
justify getting one.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 12:58:48 on Sun, 28 Jul
2019, Someone Somewhere remarked:

If anything, the iPhone is an iPod-Touch with a phone added.

Given the iPod touch was released later, it's more like an iPhone with
the phone removed.

Do you know for sure which was designed first (rather than which was
released first)?
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 11:17:50 on Sun, 28 Jul
2019, Recliner remarked:

I have no argument with the tablet-like devices being identified as a
phone with whistles and bells. But not every combination of phone and
camera is like that. And I have several even quite recent phones with
pathetic cameras (eg very muddy 1 megapixel).

That must have taken some finding! Is it some $25 third world special?

One is the Aldi ruggedised dual-SIM 3G phone (3 week battery life) at
about that price. Another is the "People's Phone", which was indeed
intended for the Third World market, at about half that price.

Both are classic pieces of design (and both unlocked). Even if the
latter is arguably also a "Beat the Boss"; and is the phone I may have
mentioned before which requires a legacy 5v SIM to work.
--
Roland Perry

On Sun, 28 Jul 2019 14:46:19 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 12:58:48 on Sun, 28 Jul
2019, Someone Somewhere remarked:

If anything, the iPhone is an iPod-Touch with a phone added.

Given the iPod touch was released later, it's more like an iPhone with
the phone removed.

Do you know for sure which was designed first (rather than which was
released first)?

The iPhone came first.

The stories go that Jobs created an internal competition between
Apple's Mac and iPod design teams to see which could come up with a
phone first; the Mac team won. The operating system of the new phone
was based on OS X (and the early announcements actually called it OS
X), but the actual release version was officially called iPhone OS.
This was later shortened to iOS (sparking a trademark battle with
Cisco, which called its own device software IOS. Apple eventually
caved in and paid Cisco for permission to use the name).

Creating a cut-down phone without phone capabilities was an obvious
next step, and the iPod Touch was duely born. It is (or, at least, the
first version was) extremely similar in design and construction to an
iPhone, with the exception of the telephony capabilities.

There's an interesting review of the first generation iPod Touch he

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007...he-ipod-touch/

Mark

On 28/07/2019 14:46, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 12:58:48 on Sun, 28 Jul
2019, Someone Somewhere remarked:

Â*If anything, the iPhone is an iPod-Touch with a phone added.

Given the iPod touch was released later, it's more like an iPhone with
the phone removed.

Do you know for sure which was designed first (rather than which was
released first)?

No - but given that originally the Jobs didn't see the true USP of the
iPhone (apps - you were meant to get content via HTML5 and the browser),
and that there apparently were prototypes of the iPhone with a jog dial
etc I'm going with they designed the iPhone first, and then when they
suddenly saw the market for apps they saw a market for a cut down version.

In message , at 09:01:33 on Mon, 29 Jul
2019, Someone Somewhere remarked:
On 28/07/2019 14:46, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 12:58:48 on Sun, 28 Jul
2019, Someone Somewhere remarked:

*If anything, the iPhone is an iPod-Touch with a phone added.

Given the iPod touch was released later, it's more like an iPhone
with the phone removed.
Do you know for sure which was designed first (rather than which was
released first)?

No - but given that originally the Jobs didn't see the true USP of the
iPhone (apps - you were meant to get content via HTML5 and the
browser), and that there apparently were prototypes of the iPhone with
a jog dial etc I'm going with they designed the iPhone first, and then
when they suddenly saw the market for apps they saw a market for a cut
down version.

The iPod Touch came out so soon after the iPhone, that while I'm
prepared to concede that my impression as a buyer (for at least the
first year the Touch was a more compelling purchase) doesn't strictly
match the manufacturing/launch timescale, nor can you evolve one from
the other and get it through the channel, in as short a period as three
months.

The only reason I didn't get a Touch was because there wasn't an obvious
way to plug a mobile data dongle into it.
--
Roland Perry