Just bad reporting. Despite what the world might like to believe smart phones existed before the iPhone, before 2007. Really, as early as 2000.
Just as an example, windows mobile was really terrible. But it did provide a web browser, data connection, installable apps, email, calendar, etc.. in your pocket.. on your phone.
It was expensive and Apple certainly did it better... but this articles metrics are disingenuous as hell.
I wrote the underlying article - thanks for catching that I wasn't using 2007/iPhone as the timeline base.
The 2002 date was when I was saying smart phones reached general consumer availability, not when the very first one was invented. As I mention in the article, it was 2002 when Blackberry phones and Microsoft Pocket PC phones came out, as well as the aforementioned Palm-based Treos.
totally agree about the misguiding article. When you compare to the first 2billion mobile phones, smartphones may even be seen as slower, given there is a strict definition for what a smartphone is.
So the fastest adopted technology in human history is one that allows us to yak incessantly, send banal ill grammared missives to each other, generate fart noises, and watch videos of kitties doing silly things. The future is going to be so awesome.
I see TV is a close 2nd there, so you know, there's a pattern here.
NVIDIA for example invented a word "superphone", for devices using Tegra3 SoC.