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Apple was the first one to put all of those things together in a single package that really worked well - thats what I mean by first modern :-P

Well that's now more a question of personal bias / preference than something that can be defined as cold, hard fact.

What worked for you might not have been someone else's preferred method of using a smart phone. As well polished as the iPhone was, I found many of its design implimentations worked against the way I liked to use a smart phone. And I think the fact that Symbian (amongst others) outsold iOS for the first few years of the iPhone's life would suggest that I wasn't alone.

So I think even by that measure, it's still unfair to exclude other handsets of the same generation which were just as popular.

But then I guess history is written by the victors, not the other pioneers who've since fallen by the wayside.

Apple took the smart phone from something used by technologists and other tech oriented people, and turned it into a mass market appliance accessible to everyone - every smart phone that has come since is related to it in form and function.

If Apple held a majority market share, then I might agree, but as I said before, Symbian et al had a larger market share so they must have had some degree of mass market appeal as well.

edit: just to clarify. I do agree that the iPhone deserve a place in the history books because it did change the landscape significantly. But my point was that the iPhone wasn't the first phone of it's ilk (probably the best all rounder and definitely best at specific criteria, but those are point I'm enjoying discussing here). In light of that, if the iPhone deserves a place then equally the handsets that pioneered much of the technology and paradigms which Apple beautifully combined, those other handsets deserves a mention too (like how scientific papers based on original research still need to draw from the pool of existing research and thus even new theories owe credit other publications)

Look at browser stats. Symbian was irrelevant compared to the iPhone is terms of popular usage as an actual internet device.

I accept that, but to a lot of people a smart phone is more than just a web browser.

Symbian had a larger market as Nokia were throwing it on as many devices as they could, irregardless of whether it worked well so they saturated the market. Plus they were commonly called featurephones and not smartphones.

Good point.

As someone who had been using smartphones long before the iPhone (Windows Mobile, Treos etc), I think the iPhone was the first iteration of what is commonly viewed by a large market as a smartphone. Rich user interaction via a large capacitive touchscreen.

That's not knocking the pre-iPhone smartphones, but conceptually they were very, very different devices with very different aims, the iPhone moved the definition of a smartphone.

The mob is fickle and they're usually wrong about the facts.

The first iPhone didn't even have apps like the smartphones that came before it. That's not modern. They didn't have the first touchscreen on a phone. Apple has very good marketing and that goes a long, long way when it comes to dealing with the mob.

All you seem to be saying is that the iPhone was not the first smartphone. That's not controversial, and that's not what was said. The question is, how do we define _modern_ smartphone.

>LG beat Apple to the market with an iPhone-like device by a few months

Ok, I'm wasting my time.

The OP said "first modern smart phone"; not first nor modern, but "first modern". So the question I raised was to determine a measure of "modern" which of which other smart phones did not exist.

I'm not trying to be controversial nor argumentative. But if someone states something as being the "first modern x" then we need to establish what "modern" means before we can agree on whether it was the first of it's ilk.

> Ok, I'm wasting my time.

You've only posted one comment. Surely it would make more sense to at least wait for my response before jumping in with derogatory remarks about a pointless argument?

And what is it with people being over sensitive on this subject. I've had personal attacks and been down voted several times for just daring to have a balanced conversation about Apple. What the hell has happened to HN that we can't even have friendly conversations any more?

It's ok, you've convinced me. The LG Prada was the first modern smartphone.

Yeah, yeah, everyone stands on other people's shoulders. Everyone knows that. Apple built the phone everyone was waiting for. People had Palm Pilots, Blackberry's, Zaurus', etc. I also had a $600 Microsoft CE phone with a slide out keyboard. The first time that I tried to install Opera, the phone hung and I couldn't use the phone. I'm standing at my bus stop trying to call my ride and the freakin phone doesn't work, won't even reboot! Anyway, it would be really helpful if people like yourself understood what Apple does "right/better" so maybe others, like the open source community, could produce better products.

> Anyway, it would be really helpful if people like yourself understood what Apple does "right/better" so maybe others, like the open source community, could produce better products.

Slightly rude don't you think? Who are "people like [me]"? And why do you assume that we don't know what Apple does right?

Can we not discuss the contributions of businesses to technology without making cheap shots at one another?

Your comments indicate that you don't understand. You think Apple PR rewrote history? Seriously?

"I don't know if that's because Apple PR team have done a wonderful job rewriting history; or because Apple happened to build the most successful product of that era that it made other products before it seem forgettable."

I also said "or because Apple happened to build the most successful product of that era that it made other products before it seem forgettable" - it's called giving a balanced argument.

Can you answer why they built such a successful/memorable product? Also, consider that Android overtook iOS pretty quickly.

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/chart3...

I already had - a few times in fact. Apple combined a lot of desirable technologies into a well polished and aesthetically pleasing product.

I've also repeatedly said they do deserve a place in the history books. I'm not trying to dismiss the quality of the iPhone, I'm only discussing whether it deserves to be defined as "the first modern smart phone" when there were lot's of other similar products before it. And if it does deserve that accolade, then do the other handsets deserve a footnote?

I don't understand why it's such a taboo to discuss the achievements of Apple and their competitors, but a lot of people seem to have reacted very negatively.

What value is there in deciding if Apple had the first modern smartphone? It's a highly subjective opinion, which will probably change several times over the next decade. Just a conversation that takes people in the weeds. Sorry, I don't want to have that nerd fight.

Apart for UI the other major factor was a browser and a browsing experience which did not suck.

I'd argue that the LG Prada beat the iPhone in terms of the first capacitive phone with a touch-centric UI. However I can't comment on how good it's browser was; but even the Prada aside, you make a very good point about how other handsets had terrible web browsers. In fact "terrible" is possibly being too kind.