3G’s broadband capabilities are what I think made iPhone a no brainer, and AT&T’s unlimited 3G data offer.
Streaming music, using google maps, real time accurate location data with GPS, and being able to browse most websites.
They had a sufficiently capable product available at just the right time to take advantage of newly rolled out mobile broadband networks, and in the US at least, coupled it with unlimited data so people would not hesitate to extensively use it and cultivate the new space.
The iPhone was EDGE. It was genuinely pretty awful if not using Wi-Fi. It was just so incredibly far ahead of everything else that 2G internet was an acceptable trade off. AT&T literally built out a weird patchwork of Wi-Fi hotspots to make it more bearable.
I know, I was referring to iPhone 3G, which is what I thought the person who responded to me was referring to with:
> in my opinion the platform didn't realize its potential until they opened it up to third party apps and the App Store.
I do not recall iPhone in 2007 being that huge of a hit. It was obviously very promising, and making waves, but iPhone 3G summer of 2008 was a no brainer even to non techies. I remember there being lines at Apple stores for months.
> I do not recall iPhone in 2007 being that huge of a hit.
I was working in mobile phone retail in 2007. It was absolutely an enormous hit, and was sold out everywhere. They couldn't ramp up production fast enough. Steve Jobs original iPhone demo was a huge, huge hit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQKMoT-6XSg
Apple already had a huge, established, fanatic base of iPod users by 2007. The presentation went viral, and people couldn't wait to get their hands on it.
Streaming music, using google maps, real time accurate location data with GPS, and being able to browse most websites.
They had a sufficiently capable product available at just the right time to take advantage of newly rolled out mobile broadband networks, and in the US at least, coupled it with unlimited data so people would not hesitate to extensively use it and cultivate the new space.