The History of Smartphones: Part 2

We have Scion. Remember who created the organizer, So organizer and organizer to Sion created a spinoff company. It was originally Ssion Software, so it was part of Ssion, but in Scion, by the way, spelled with a P P s I O N, so it's Passion. So Passion Software becomes a new company called Symbion Limited. Now this is important because Symbion Limited produced the Simbion Opera rating system, and Symbion operating system was one of In fact, it

was the most popular operating system for several years. It dominated the smartphone market. Because we haven't reached a point yet where smartphones have become a real consumer item. We've got pro summers, but we don't have like the average person did not own a smartphone yet. It just it just hadn't reached the point where anyone wanted one. Did the average person own a cellphone by ninety eight, You're starting to get into a lot more cell phone use. I didn't have one yet. Let's see, I was out

of no do your trade manages. We're getting hold I am again. I've been out of college for a while, but I don't didn't yet own a cell phone, but I knew plenty of people in college who had cellphones at that time. Granted, the most advanced app that most of the cell phones ran was Snake, which is awesome, seminal, very important, very important. I think I think I still had a beeper, so that yeah, pager. I found that the other day. I was moving recently, and I feel

like I should open a museum. It's terrific. But many jokes. We get into a big company, a big name in smartphones, although they've definitely in recent year has been hitting some real hard times. Research in motion, research in motion which is known as RIM, which produces the BlackBerry. Yeah, now

that's yeah. And you did a gangster sign with BlackBerry, which I appreciate because man, BlackBerry was the name in smartphones all the way from when they introduced their first one up until a certain Apple company called Apple developed theirs. But yes, uh, in this year, they actually released their BlackBerry email device, which did not have a radio transmitter, and it didn't have a phone transmitter right by by by this year, by this year, Jonathan means, because that

is where he's living right now. Apparently, well, you know, some of us just have arrested development. Mine is very specific summer of I could tell you about that summer, i'd be making it all up because I have no memory of it. So, yeah, ninety nine, that's when that's when Research Emotion introduces the Blackbrain email device. And yeah, not a phone, but it was the first real product from that company that would later become almost synonymous with

the term smartphone. All right. And nearly simultaneously, Palm was on the scene and releasing, releasing, and and and they they released a PDA that year that did have wireless capacity. Yeah,

it had the Palm seven had wireless capabilities. It still didn't have a phone in it because well, back back in the early days of PDAs, they were all self contained devices, right, you didn't necessarily hook it into some sort of network unless you wanted to connect it to a computer and use your fancy fourteen four motives connect to the end. Yeah, and then forty minutes later you get whatever data you wanted. Yeah, this was for that

next step. So again this this is the building blocks for future self smartphones rather right right, Well, yeah, it's both both sides of the industry. The PDA industry and

the phone industry were developing to a point. But yes, nothing had had really successfully brought the two together yet, um until Ericson came back, um with the research they had done from that uh Penelope from the Penelope, um and uh came out with the R three eight Yeah oh yeah, yeah yeah, so that's that's the first consumer phone first on the market that was called a smartphone.

So yeah, there you go. The very first smartphone, if you want to use that particular definition, would be the R three e D. If you want to be if you want to be much more um uh particular as my co host has been, which is awesome because she she caught it and I didn't, then you would go with the Penelope, the g Sight from two years before.

But yeah, this was the one that was available in quantities greater than two units useful for for for selling them, for example, if you want to do that crazy thing, right, if you want to build a business. And it was apparently it was a flip phone, and it used and remember I mentioned the Symbian operating system, that's what it used. And then we also have another big name in what used to what used to be a big name in the smartphone industry, and it's hoping to become a big

name again or to re establish itself. It's Nakia Na yeah, which I always hears Nokia, but apparently the correct pronunciation is closer to either Nakia or Nokia. I'm completely ignorant about this. It is it is a Japanese company. It is not. It is Scandinavian. Scandinavian. Yes, So when you whenever you use a Nokia phone, of Viking gets his horns, more more reason to switch away from the iPhone. I'm not I don't know if it's a good or bad thing. I'm just I mean, it's look, I can't I can't

pass judgment on facts. It's just a fact. I'm made up. Jonathan. I think I think you can pass judgment on facts fair enough, so Nakia introduces the nine zero Community Tour, which had the very first full color screen for a cell phone. Yeah, before that, we only got half colors and it was terrible right down the middle. Well, now you would get things like would get like things like wow this pictures and beautiful colors of blood and reading. All of this is going on in the year two thousands. Um,

and uh. Then then by by two thousand one, Microsoft decided to finally join the party. Yeah, it starts to create some personal digital assistance with cell phone functionality. So Microsoft is actually starting to build smartphones, not necessarily calling them that. Um. The very first one was using a

pocket PC operating system, which was this gets confusing. When Microsoft had quite a few operating systems kind of developing and different formats at this point, pocket PC was one of those, and that was what was going into these early p d a's. But we'll get more into the confusing Microsoft operating system thing in in a couple of years, especially when we get into more of the modern day

mobile stuff. I see modern day we're talking two thousand one. Well, do you remember two thousand and one, back when dinosaurs ruled the smartphone landscape so long ago? When did Dressing Park come out? Maybe it did, Actually, maybe they did. I think that was back in back in something like the Dressing Park was just ruling the home theater market. Yes, that point not okay, But yeah, two thousand one, that's the pocket PC starts hitting the market. So we start

seeing Microsoft branded cell phones. Well at least the operating system is Microsoft branded. The cell phones themselves were branded by other companies, and they first started to work with HTC. Here you go, and like I said, obviously my ignorance of the company was all due to me and not due to them. Because the first Microsoft smartphones were built

by HTC. That's kind of cool. Well, I think for a long time too was it wasn't there a little bit of a reluctance almost on the on the manufacturers parts style, like they kind of wanted to brand up with whoever they had joined with it. It's actually been a really I mean, that's been a tough story throughout

the history of smartphones as well. I didn't really touch on that when I was researching, but it is true that we've got a lot of manufacturers that have kind of sided with one like they they've they've put their their stock into a particular os. So you've got some companies that are known for producing smartphones that only run a certain operating system like Android or Symbian or Windows Phone as we'll get into um. And then of course you have Apple that just makes you know they've got

control the whole thing. Got So, Yeah, it's an interesting landscape and there are a few there's still a few companies out there that are trying to play the field and make sure that they are covering all the bases by producing hardware that can run one operating system, but they produce another model that runs a different operaing system. So they trying not to limit themselves. It's a complicated issue.

Thank goodness, we're doing a podcast about it. So yeah, in two this is where this is where they really exciting part of the super said story takes place. That's you clearly have more emotions about this than I do. I was there to see the end of it. Uh and yeah, yeah, this this was this was Palm Palm introducing the Trio when when yeah, that's that's that's fading. There's a lot of them in this, but you know, the Trio comes out and that's that's Palm's entry into

the smartphone market. This is the actual p d A with the cell phone built in. So my goodness made made the phone calls and did the p d A stuff. Yep, yea. The very first Trio had did not have a cell phone in it, and it was the very very first model of Trio didn't. But after that, uh, they went with the cell phone, and from that point forward, trio

and smartphone were for a very particular populations synonymous. I mean, if you if you said, oh i'll call, I'll use my smartphone, they were talking about a Trio for It just was one of those things where I was kind of like, how iPhone users can be really passionate about their product. That's what happens. Yeah, I don't know if you're familiar with this whole fanboy thing, but you will be. I've never I've never um, but yeah, yeah, No. The Trio fans back in the day were kind of like

iPhone fans are today. They were, and I mean, like I said, I still know people who will wax poetic about their Trios. I think Rafe Needleman of formerly of c net, and now I think we've ever note uh he I've heard him on multiple occasions talk about how much he loved that device. So yeah, and then Nakia introduced the seven oh, which snappy name. I have a problem with some cell phone manufacturers who just use models,

model numbers. It's too hard to talk about when you're doing a podcast that they're really not although not nearly as goofy as having to say snow leopards or or Android cupcake doughnut, a Claire froyo gingerbread, honeycomb ice cream sandwich. It's a jelly bean. It's an ice cream sandwich that I really think. I really take a little bit personally. I'm like, really, guys, I start feeling like I'm ordering something I hop instead of it's the left side of

the menu instead of an operating system. Yeah. Well, the Nakia Nakias was the first smartphone using the Simbion operating system. And uh so now we're starting to see Symbion really take take hold of the smartphone market, especially with Nakia, and Nakia was a big, big name, particularly outside the United States. Right um, and a lot a lot of

this breaking ground was happening in in Europe. Actually, I think that most of Europe had smartphones are more, more of the people who would have had smartphones had them in Europe before they ever had them. In Europe and Japan, they were smartphones were present in Europe and Japan well before they started to become more well known in the US. But yes, that's absolutely true. In the United States, we were trailing quite quite a ways behind. Most of us

were still on our featureless cell phones. Yeah, not not not even feature phones at the time. Yeah. They the feature they had was again they can make calls and places. Yeah, you might be able to send a text. That was also nice. Yeah. Yeah. SMS was starting to was starting to come on yep around that era, as as all of the network generations started moving up. And uh yeah, and then and then BlackBerry came back in two thousand three to release its first smartphone, right and that was

that was the phone that captured corporate America's imagination. Uh. The smartphone at that point in America anyway, was mostly thought of as either something that was an early adopter toy or you were an executive with a company because you need to have access to your email while you

were in the bathroom of some other facility. Because I've heard that clicking people don't think I haven't heard it because you're your in your own bathroom had a phone in it, so you wouldn't need that, of course phone television. But we're getting we're getting off topic. Also, also in two thousand and three, Android was founded kind of mysteriously. No one really knew what was going on with them.

Then I imagined the people that Android probably did. But when I was doing research for this, I really did come across when Google purchased Android, which would be a couple of years, um, a couple of years two thousand and five, that's when Google buys Android Incorporated. A little Yes, even at that time, no one was really the information I saw. No one was really sure what Android was. They're like, well, Google bought this company called Android Incorporated.

We have no what that's all about. But obviously this was Google laying the groundwork for its future entry into the smartphone market. So the seeds are sown at least if no, uh no, uh later than two thousand five, possibly earlier, because you have no idea how long the people at Google were working on this on their own before they said let's just buy someone who does this,

which is what a lot of big companies do. Moving up to two thousand six, we get to a point where, um, okay, so this this, this kind of shows us what smartphones were doing in the market. All right, So we're still talking two thousand six, we're still telling pre iPhone. Uh And at this time, the average American consumer who was in the market for a mobile phone was really not considering smartphones that much. And the numbers reflect that smartphones

accounted for about ten percent of all sales. So this was one of those markets where I think even I at the time was like, if I were an executive or if I had more money than brains, then I would buy one of these. I just can't see in the need for one. It was a professional and the hobbyist kind of thing still and says the price point to not quite come down yet. And you know that also has to do with just the pace of pace

of technology and War's law and all that kind of right. Sure, and the feature sets were very interesting for early adopters, but not so practical for the average user. So no one had really cracked that finding a way to introduce a smartphone that appeals to the general consumer. And in fact, at that time, I think no one. There was no way anyone was ever going to come up with that.

It was just impossible. It would be it would be decades before we would see a smartphone in the hands of Joe America until in two thousand and seven, a year later, when Steve Jobs said, Hey, I've got something, and I know you're gonna love it. It's simply magical. It just works, it's beautiful, and we're calling it the iPhone. Yeah, Steve Jobs. I mean, he took the stage and he showed off that first at that first iPhone presentation. I

don't know, you've probably never seen this. I actually went back and watched the video years, like a couple of years ago when I was writing an article about iPhones, and I was just curious. I was like, I wonder what the audience reaction was to the iPhone when they first announced it, because I mean, was it was it? Was it wild cheers or was it more of a quad? No, it was the wild Cheers. People went bonkers because they saw that design, and that design is undeniable. The iPhone

is a gorgeous device, oh of course. Well, and most everything that Apple does is with that. With that first iMac kind of thing, it's an exception. But yeah, they well, once they get Johnny, I've you know, once I got Sir Johnny, I've part of me. Once they got ser Johnny, I've on on on the payroll. And he started to help design their products. He really brought a new aesthetic to Apple products across the line, but particularly when you

get to their mobile devices. They are sleek, They're beautiful. It is not an exaggeration to call them sexy. You look at that and you're like, I want to hold that. It's not just that it's functional. It just looks great. It looks great. You wanna do you want to you want to poke it? Yeah? Yeah, boy? Backing off from that one, so moving on, so many jokes, uh the but yes, yes it was, and it did very well. It Uh, it got consumers interested in it. When it

first launched, it launched at a higher price point. It was I think around six hundred dollars something like that. I don't have the figure in my notes. I just remember it being higher. And I remember that a few months later they had negotiated with A T and T to have a reduced rate if you signed a contract. Because I remember all the people who bought it when it first came out, going the number that I wrote it down, So you're my memory actually works, guys, that's phenomenal. Um.

But yeah, so they they launched the iPhone. Within six months, Apple starts to allow the party developers to create apps

on the iPhone platform. Yeah, that's right, because there was a little bit there was a little bit of angst at first that the iPhone wasn't really going to be a smartphone because you weren't going to have the functionality to change it to to write you would you'd be limited whatever Apple made, which you know, they had had sort of a similar problem with their computer lines sharing the past to the idea of this closed system because Jobs wanted to deliver a very specific experience to users,

and part of that meant being very controlling about what can and cannot be allowed on that device. But within six months they opened it up so that third party developers could develop apps. They had to submit them to Apple and they had to be approved before they could go in the Apple Store. But at that point it really opened up the doors, and it was just that the game was indeed a foot in the smartphone market.

I mean, consumers went bonkers. Um. And so at this point, well, there's there's another player in the smartphone market that wasn't too impressed with the iPhone when it first came out. Could could that be? Could that be Microsoft? Yeah? There was a certain man by the name of Steve Balmer who, in between eating interns, turned and looked and said, iPhone too expensive. Uh. He actually really did say it was like the most expensive. It was just a really expensive smartphone,

is pretty much. He kind of dismissed it. And at the time, Windows Mobile, which was the operating system for smartphones running the Microsoft operating system at that time, accounted for around eight of the market share of the smartphone market. So Windows Mobiles in a really good place already. I mean, there were a lot of other players out there. The Symbion was probably the that was the dominant player at that time. BlackBerry also a very powerful player at that time.

This is pre Android. So, uh, iPhone comes out, bombers like, it's really expensive, No one's gonna buy it. We're fine, Yeah, We're good. That's not going to be a thing. Yeah. Uh. Turned out he was maybe a little premature with that, because only a year later I found had about about thirteen percent of the market share right thirteen, from zero to thirteen percent. Now, keep in mind Windows Mobile had been an eighteen percent and had been an established operating

system in the smartphone market. So within just one year, not even a full year, within within about half a year, iPhone was already making a huge dent in a place where it had never really had a presence before. Also keep in mind that the iPhone was not globally available right away. It was introduced into various markets over time. It had a much wider launch than a lot of other technologies have had in the in the both in the past and more recently, but it still was not

global right out of the gate um. And that was the same two thousand eight, that's the year when Nakia ended up buying Symbian. So Nakia and Symbian had already had a relationship, you know, Symbion was on that first smartphone that Knockia produced. But now then, perhaps as a as a little bit of a response to Apple getting into the game and having this very vertical structure, they may be said, hey, yeah, let's let's square up. Let's let's uh, let's let's batten down the hatches. Let's make

some more mixed metaphors. That's what they said. That was. That was also the year, um, that that Google uh introduced Android. That was, like I think it was, it was in the fall, the fall of that year, and it wasn't until the following as you point out, Lauren, it wasn't until the following winter that I purchased my cell phone. And I almost had it by two thousand eight, but it was actually two thousand nine when I got mine.

Well according to my to my extensive stocking research, it wasn't until you went to see Yes, but how holy crap, you remember more about me than I do, Lauren, Yeah, when it was yes, Yes, that's true. Um, Jonathan and Kristena, I did an episode about smartphones. In preparation for recording this, I I went listened to so so this this was last night for me. This was two thousand nine for everybody else. I actually haven't listened to that episodes. Now

I'm wondering what else I said. Uh. Yeah, HTCG one was the very first cell phone in the United States market that had Android, and it had different names in different like in Europe it had a different name, and but in the United states. It was the HTCG one, and that, in fact was the smartphone that I purchased, and I liked it because it had a slide out quarty keyboard of physical keyboard, um I no longer had, well, I mean I still owned the HTCG one, I don't

use it. I have the HTC G two now, which also has a slight out keyboard, because I'm a dude who doesn't like change and I will use things until they fall apart. Also, also, at the time, touch screens were not we're not quite so much. I mean they were becoming a thing clearly with the iPhone, but the iPhone was really the first major player to too. Yeah, I mean there were there were other phones out there that had touch screen capability, uh like some of Palm stuff.

So I had some touch screen, but but really the capacity of touch screen. iPhone was the company that really really pushed it, and not only just pushed it, but introduced things like multi touch in a form factor that people weren't used to. Multi touch was pretty new at that time. I mean they've been in the prototype stage for years before, but it was new to the consumer. And and only that, but they designed the features around the touch sensitivity, which was you know, it was all

built together. So these other models that we're looking at, one of the problems they have is you don't have that vertical alignment like you do with Apple. Right. So if you are making, if you, Lauren are making you personally, you are personally making the hardware. So you're going out. Yeah, So you go to your your your your blacksmith, ye, and you put on the big apron and you you you hammer out an iron cell phone for me because apparently I'm in Game of Thrones now and I winter

is coming and I need to call my family. But you're you're just making the hardware. That's all you're doing. Okay, someone else over there they're making the operating system, probably out of ravens, because those move at the speed of light in the Game of Throne series. This is getting off on a rant, but seriously, how fast do those things fly? Anyway, So your raven powered, raven operating system powered smartphone raven was made by the Outhern company, let's

call him the Lanisters. And you have made your your cell phone out of iron, my iron, my iron self, iron and blood and tears. And you put the two together and then someone else is actually making the apps that run on that operating system. You're talking about all these different groups coming together to form something. Because they haven't necessarily been working tightly together the entire time, it

may not be the most smooth experience. Sid whereas Apple says, no, no, no, no no, we're making the device, We're making the operating system, and for the first six months, we're making all the apps. So everything is made to work together with its touch screen interface, and it worked so well that that pretty

much defined the standard from that point forward. Yeah, but on those early days, I mean, touch screens could be well, it was a little touch and go oh oh no, what when when shout out that Chris Palette right there? But so yeah, let's let's go up to two thousand nine. So man, alright, So here's the next chapter in the sad story again, the emotions. It's crazy Palm emotions. I never even owned a Palm device, but I just feel badly for them. That was when they introduced to webb

O S. I was there. It was C. E. S. Two thousand nine of January two thousand nine, they introduced web os on a smartphone called the Palm Pre and this was a dramatic departure from the previous Palm os that they had developed. I was the think that people were very excited about that. Yeah, it was the buzz term. I mean everyone I ran into that was one like if you ask people like, so, why don't the show

have you seen? That really impressed you? This was one of three things that people would say over and over again like, oh, well have you seen the Palm pre running web o s Because it was again a touch based UH operating system for a smartphone. It it had it looked I wouldn't say it looked like the iPhone because it had a very different look and feel to it, but you could tell that it again it was designed

for that form factor. So um yeah, I mean it was just very impressive and everyone's like, this is the thing that's going to bring Palm back as a major player because since the PDA days, since two thousand seven with the iPhone came out, Palm had really been kind of lagging behind. Their Palm os was starting to look a little dated. BlackBerry was having similar issues with their

their operating system on their phones. Everyone was feeling the pressure because iPhone had made such a big impression so web Os was like the answer. Everyone thought, this is amazing. There's one tiny problem. The phone was not going to come to market until six months after they showed it off at CES. That's even even in that time, before before social media had shortened our attentions fans. That was

that was very long. It was too long. It was too long, and they generated a ton of buzz and goodwill at the show, but it all kind of faded away by the time the phones actually came to market, and then by then people just weren't as impressed, and so it ended up not doing really well. They tried a couple of times, they introduced other phones further down the line, like the Palm Pixie, but those also failed

to really make a dent. And within thirty one months of them introducing the web Os, the thing that everyone thought was amazing. Within thirty one months, so just over a year, Palm ceased to exist as its own thing and was purchased by another company, little bitty company called Hewitt Packard. But yeah, that year, it was, it was. It was a big year. Yeah, it was a huge year. I mean, Angry Birds came out. Okay, we joke about it, but Angry Birds. Seriously, I don't know that any other

app has done as much to sell smartphones. It's huge. It's huge, and I mean in that in that really important and I and I say this partially jokingly, but in that really important five year old set, it's enormous. And my five year old you mean the guy in the stall next to me, like, what has that guy

been eating? Those are the weirdest noises? Because it wasn't it was It would take a while before Angry Birds would come out for Android, and so for a long time, I had no idea what that was until I played it, and I'm like, oh, okay, So it wasn't some sort of gastronomic disaster. It was just a It's just they were playing a smartphone game on which is just you you yeah, the way never sanitation people. Yeah, I'm not

in any names or anything. So this let's talk a little bit about the market share in two thousand nine too, because things had been kind of changing a bit. Um we had BlackBerry was doing well with about of the market. Uh, Symbian still dominating. They were rocking it out in it. Yeah, they're doing really well. Uh, the iPhone is still doing well, but um, but right now, you would if you were looking at the numbers, you'd say, Okay, Blackberries got a

comfortable spot. Corporate America still loves their Blackberries, so they're doing well. Sambian is still on lots and lots of phones, particularly Noxia phones, so it's doing really well. You would think based on that, and you were saying, Okay, these these companies are in good shape. There's no immediate danger. Also, just to put things in perspective, I believe in two thousand nine of cell phone sales were still feature phones.

So so, I mean, so so this was all I mean, this was all big stuff, and there were big numbers being tossed around, but it was not the average human person perhaps had not bought into. Right, if you were not someone who owned a smartphone in two thousand nine, then you know, you might know like that that techy friend of yours who just tends to get hold of everything as soon as it comes out, like it comes out.

Then you then you saw a smartphone, you got to play with it, and and you're like, oh, that's kind of cool, but I'm all right right now, and it'll probably be another year or two before you felt the undeniable urge to join the throng and get yourself a smartphone. Right. However, I think it was also the year that mobile broadband exceeded voice call traffic. Wow. Yeah, turning back then, that's

it now. So so even even if it was a relatively small percentage of the market share, that's I mean this This might also just be indicative of geo CD s um rest in peace, No longer will you be under construction. So so in two ten um stuff what happened into Cusper, Caspersky Lab finds the first trojan virus for Android operating system. So you know, that's bad news for the smartphone world, but it also means, in a way,

you growed up. You're you're big enough to hack. You're big enough, big enough to hack and have horrible things happen to you. So again, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the terminology trojan trojan virus is this essentially a type of virus that looks like a normal, regular kind of software, but inside it it's hiding malware.

So it's like a trojan horse in that sense, except instead of a bunch of warriors sitting in a wooden horse, you have some malware sitting in some code but's designed to look like something else, like usually a game or some other kind of app, and then you execute it and then it goes except more malicious. Probably then it could be anything from making your phones hard drive fill up and be useless to creating a backdoor entry to your operating system so that some remote hacker can mess

with stuff. It all depends on the nature of the malware inside the trojan. Sorry, yes, yes, that That was also the year that that Microsoft introduced the Windows Phone seven. Yeah, Windows Phone seven, which was you would think, oh that must have followed Windows Phone six. It followed Windows Mobile six point five. I think something like that. But anyway, Microsoft is good at many things, counting maybe not so much, right, yeah, oh my god, like Windows eight is technically Windows version

six point two. I stopped asking questions a very long time ago. Well, anyway, Windows Phone seven. They decided they were totally rebranding their mobile operating system, and they also wanted to really give it a real overhaul because at this point it was undeniable. The iPhone was a power player in the smartphone industry, and Microsoft could not really compete. Continuing with the Windows Mobile platform. So they decided to try and look at it in a new way, and

they came up with Windows Phone, so specifically Windows Phones seven. UM. They radically changed the operating system so that it had a much more touch friendly look to it. UM. They also introduced things that would later be incorporated into Windows eight, things like live tiles, which is where you have your

icon for whatever your application is. If your application has notifications in it, for example, let's say it's a Twitter application, then those notifications could come through and be shown on the tile itself on your screen without having to open up the application. So you at a glance, you get to see what's going on, and then you can of course open up applications to dive further into whatever it happens to be. UM and and uh, there were what ten devices but yeah, ten launch devices, so again a

different strategy from Apple. Instead of putting it all on a single model that might have a couple of different variations depending upon like, oh, this one is also thirty two gigabytes, this one sixty four gigabytes. Microsoft approach was instead to partner with several different companies and launch multiple handsets that way. Uh. In theory, there would be at least one handset out there that was right for you, and more of a scattershot approach than I. No, really,

you're gonna like this thing, right. Apple's approaches is, uh, this is what we make and you will love it. Whereas Microsoft's approaches, we have partner with all these people and surely one of them has made something you love. And honestly, I mean from a from a consumer perspective, I just this is my own opinion. I prefer the Microsoft approach, which is also Google's approach. I prefer that approach because it gives me more options. Right, there's there's

more options, more hands on. Um, you usually get to customize your content and your experience, right, a little bit more, and or the downside of that is that each manufacturer

can put its own spin on the operating system. So you could have, like Lauren, if you bought a Google Android phone and I bought a Google Android phone and we're both running the same version of the operating system, they could still be radically different experiences because the handset manufacturer that you buy from might put its own skin over Android and mine might do the same. So then

we're like, well, this is weird. We both are using the same operating system, but it totally looks steps completely different, it works completely different. Apple doesn't have that problem. So there there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches UM and at the time in within that year from two thousand nine, smartphones made up of all phone sales. Gosh,

so that's a huge jump up to half. You know, if you have two people walking into a phone company phone retail outlet, one's walking out with a cell phone and the other one's walking out with a smartphone and a big smile on their face and a lighter wallet. And that's also the year when HP actually bought Palm, So this is the point where that was the official death. Yeah, where Palm Palm is no more is um absorbed within HP, which continued to support webOS, is now moving it toward

an open source model. But yeah, webOS is kind of languished since then as well. Yeah, they tried, they tried to launch with that tablet did they end up putting for like a super cheap price? And I wanted one so badly, but by the time I even found out about it, they had sold out. Oh my goodness. They put it up on the web and said, like, I think it was like a hundred bucks for this. I remembers tablet and I'm like four d doll. How could I not get it? Doesn't take seven? Yeah, I couldn't

get it because they were gone. Because so many people took seven. I wasn't paying attention to Twitter. That's the lesson you should take home today. Kids always pay attention to Twitter all the time, every time move on Twitter. So two thousand ten was also um. The app store, both the Apple App Store and Android App Store had been growing by leaps and bounds. Absolutely, and there were two hundred and twenty thousand apps in the Apple App Store and and only only seventy and the only only

seventy and the Androids, Yeah, and the Apple. The Apple smartphone was so attractive that all the developers wanted, like, you know, this is the sexy device you want to have your app on that So if you had to choose one of the two, a lot of developers chose Apple. Um, even though Android appeared on more handset devices. But then that also Android had some other issues, things like not all the manufacturers would use the latest version of the

operating systems. Yeah, there were there were three or four different versions Android out at that time that we're being around. It's a really fragmented experience, you know. Again with the various skins, the various versions, it made it more challenging to create an app that could work across all of the Androids devices that were out there at that time, just because you know, the different versions of the operating system alone made it difficult. Yeah. Then then in two eleven, Yeah,

well that's a big change. Okay, so you've got Nackia. You remember they bought Symbian. They had bought Symbian. It was a big to do. That was that they were throwing that they were throwing their weight behind Simbion. Two thou eleven, big change. Knackia announces it will use Windows

Phone as the platform for future smartphones. So just a couple of years after they had bought in fact, three years after they had bought Simbian, they they said, all right, we're throwing in with Microsoft and Microsoft and Knockia are gonna start making Windows phone devices. Big change, I mean politically in that landscape as a huge thing. Um. And also we started seeing some major changes in the market

share around this time too. Uh, Android was up to almost that's crazy, okay, but again Androids on a lot of different hand handset devices, so it's not you know, you don't have the one Android phone, so that it had that advantage. But yes, to go from a tiny, little like single digit percentage to thirty six point six percent, that was enormous, and actually by July of that year, yeah,

and then by November more than fifty. So even within two thousand eleven, you just see those numbers just go up, and that again is reflective of the fact that Android just capt on coming out on more and more phones. That's the other thing is that if you say you want to go out and buy an Android phone, you've got a lot of choices, and three months from now they'll be totally different choices, whereas if you want an iPhone, you're gonna have one choice for well six to twelve months. Yeah,

yeah you can. You can still buy a three G but well you could, I don't unless you wanted to have an iPod like I do iPhone iPod two twelve A different sad story. So rem was this kind of weird company and that it had two CEOs and co CEOs and they they kind of had I mean, they had a really rocky year over well a couple of years two thousand ten and two thousand and eleven, they released a tablet called the Playbook that didn't do very well. That was that was a big black eye for the company,

and their numbers were starting to go down. In fact, a lot of corporations were starting to shift the iPhone as their device or even Android, and so they were starting to see their market share take a hit. So the co CEOs resigned in the beginning of twelve, both of them out. Yeah, they're both out, uh. And then we had a new operating system get introduced in twelve. Right then Microsoft put out there um Windows found eight yep, which was a big evolution of Windows Phone seven and

Windows Phone eight and Windows eight. If you look at the two you definitely see the similarities. So so there's a lot of uh, there's there's a lot of energy there, if I can use that word, um. Microsoft is they're trying to create a very uh even experience across all platforms so that when you are using a Microsoft product, it's very much familiar, no matter if it's on a phone, a tablet, or a computer. It's a great, great strategy if they can just if they can get it to work,

if they can push it out there. I mean it's really dependent on the market now of course, as well as you know the support that they give all the developers, which are very important, as Steve Balmber will tell you repeatedly, developers, developer, developers, UM so. So the current um operating system breakdown, Android a little bit of a dark horse from from eleven is up to of the market share. This are crazy

seventy five. And you would never think that based on a lot of the discussions because there's a lot of talk about how Apple sells so many millions of iPhones, and it's true, they sell a lot of iPhones. It's just that there are so many different Android devices out there. So Apple's share of the smartphone market is. Don't cry for Apple. They're doing they're doing really well. But Android definitely, as I mean, if you look at the numbers, Android

is just dominating. Yeah. And I mean if you're going to cry for anyone, cry for BlackBerry because they are down at four. And that's crazy. It's it's a it's a sexy factor that we talked about, Yes, it really is. Yeah, and they and they knew it. They tried, you know, they keep The current promise from BlackBerry is always that the next operating system is really going to change things, and it may very well do that. We've seen companies

turn around, you know, on on on the things. You you might say, well, this is the doom of this company. They're not coming back, and then the next year you're like like, WHOA, I was so wrong. I mean we did that with Apple. We thought Apple was done for and then boy did they come back a little bit. Yeah, and there's some rumors now, yeah, I keep hearing I keep hearing that that Microsoft is is wooing. There's Yeah.

Most this is mostly based on a couple of analysts who have looked out and said, well, Microsoft and Nokia have this um this relationship together. They've been working together to build Windows phone devices. It makes sense for Microsoft to make this movie. This would make Microsoft more like Apple in a sense because they would own a manufacturer as well as the operating system. Now Google, of course they went and acquired Motor Role of Mobility a few

years ago, so they're also there. Although Google still their stances. They're producing this operating system for any handset manufacturer. Teams. Um so, we don't know necessarily that this would become an exclusive relationship even if it happens, and there are plenty of analysts out there who seriously doubt that this will become a thing. But yeah, that's kind of where that brings us up to today. We will surely see the smartphone continue to evolve, uh into various form factors.

We might be wearing them as glasses. Google has its way. Uh So, yeah, it's kind of exciting. I'm curious to see what happens next. I'm really curious to see how these numbers play out and whether Android maintains this dominant place in the market and yet is viewed as it also ran behind Apple, which is weird, but it's true. It's it's yeah, it's strange. It's marketing. They're so good, they're so good. Well, I think that wraps up this whole huge timeline. Our our producer, Tyler wants to go

and eat, so we're going to wrap this up. Guys, thank you so much. If you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, I highly recommend you get in touch with us. Send us an email. Our addresses tech Stuff at Discovery dot com or drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter, or handle at both of those. Is tech stuff. H. S W and Lauren and I will talk to you again really soon. Thank you for more on this and thousands of others topics. Because it has to work. That came