Not sure what you are going on about, that the original iPhone was a PoC.
Given what was available at that time (I was using a Windows Mobile O2 XDA AND a Blackberry at that time), the iPhone was simply magical. The ability to browse the full web on the go and a proper mail client, was amazing.
Worth the money to travel to San Francisco from Singapore just to get one (and the cost of the AT&T SIM masker to spoof it on the local Singapore telco network)
Again, no. You completely somehow forgot tech in late 2000s lol.
The internet on anything mobile was pretty painful when it launched in general. Websites weren't optimized for mobile, mobile data was unusably slow. Most people who wanted portability were using things like netbooks, which you could actually multitask on.
Blackberry was the goto for actual phone because it was much easier to type on due to the best keyboard at the time, well developed software for things like email, basic browser, e.t.c.
I wouldn't bother responding to grandfather. Literally every time apple releases a new product, there's a bunch of people collectively shrugging off whatever the product claims to be bringing, and along come the "the iPhone v1 was crap too and look how that turned out" apologists. Not worth the discourse.
I think you have rose tinted glasses. I had one too, and the browser was garbage over 2g. You forget how much time was spent looking at that checkerboard pattern.
As for email. Proper email client? It was pop3 only, and you had to manually tap to fetch new messages.
You're right about the email client. I had IMAP email clients on mobile for a while before the iPhone supported it. Email on the OG iPhone was terrible.
Given what was available at that time (I was using a Windows Mobile O2 XDA AND a Blackberry at that time), the iPhone was simply magical. The ability to browse the full web on the go and a proper mail client, was amazing.
Worth the money to travel to San Francisco from Singapore just to get one (and the cost of the AT&T SIM masker to spoof it on the local Singapore telco network)