This. For me it started with the XDA (II). The telecom provider O2 had an HTC produced handset called the XDA, essentially a Pocket PC (predecessor of Windows Mobile) PDA with built-in GPRS modem (which I remember fetching up to 64 kbps, as opposed to using dial-up via GSM, which would get you 9600 bps if you paired up a Palm or psion 3/5 via irda to a nokia 6210). The XDA II followed a year later. By that time, there were also multiple Treo models with built-in mobile modems.

It was great. There was no app store, but there were dozens if not hundreds of apps voor PPC on Tucows and other such download sites. But, people would laugh at you 'why would you want to browse websites or check your e-mail when you're not at a computer?'

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O2_Xda

Same here with XDA II. Something really ironic now that I think of it is that they shipped with ARM chips made by Intel.

I’d put the starting point at the iPhone, but not for technical reasons and with a heavy American focus.

At the turn of the century I had a PDA with unlimited wireless data (Handspring Prism + Ricochet). I used that a lot for email and web browsing but stopped when those companies failed.

There continued to be PDAs on the market but the chokepoint as needing $100/month or more for an unlimited data plan. This especially toxic for the web where you have no idea how much data the link you are thinking about clicking on will use. Also, the phone carriers charged App Store fees which would’ve made Steve Jobs blush and had to be individually negotiated with every phone company so few developers even worked on apps seriously since the market was so limited.

The iPhone was a huge improvement in the device but equally big for Americans was the cheap unlimited data plan meaning you weren’t having to think about the cost before sharing photos or sending an email with an attachment.

Try Sammsung SPH-i300 from 2001

Even before that was a Kyocera but that was really nothing like an iphone and not that great to use. It was probably first or close to it, but took a couple other iterations to get good.

That Samsung was awesome though. I loved that thing even though I did and still do miss having a real keyboard, so that was actually not an aspect I loved, but it sure was slick and the universe of apps provided any funky functionality I wanted, because the apps could actually integrate with the phone and hardware. For instance out of the box the dialer was not that well integrated with anything else like the address book. But a guy sold an app that did that awesomely. That phone with that app installed pulled things together into the next level usefulness that we all take for granted as obvious now.

I had a Treo when the first iPhone came out. The Treo had cut-and-paste and 3G wireless. The initial iPhone had neither.

The Treo may have been inferior in other ways, but it can be hard to remember how limited the first iPhone was.

also in the 02004-8 timeframe the danger hiptop was the hot smartphone

As aaronsw explained in December 02008 in http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/forgottensidekick

> It’s been a frustrating year for us Sidekick users. It seems like every television show, periodical, and man in the street is raving about the amazing world-changing capabilities of the iPhone (and, to a lesser extent, the Google Phone). How having a device that can conveniently surf the Web, answer email, run third-party applications and fit in your pocket is as big a technological breakthrough as hovercars.

> Which is infuriating to those of us who have been using a superior device for the past five years.