Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by saghm 664 days ago
> The n95 did outsell the iPhone with 10M units but Nokia had a massively more mature sales pipeline whereas Apple had to build out carrier relations.

Am I remembering correctly that originally the iPhone only supported AT&T? My family all was on a shared Verizon plan at the time, and I have a vague recollection of the fact that it wasn't an option for us, but I'm not positive I remember correctly. Nowadays, the idea of a phone not being possible to purchase for a given network seems silly, but I feel like it was a thing at the time.
2 comments
mperham 664 days ago
> Am I remembering correctly that originally the iPhone only supported AT&T?

Yes, for the first few years. Within a year or two, the writing was on the wall and the other providers were dying to get it.

link
MBCook 664 days ago
Which is partly why the Motorola(?) Droid phones got so popular.

Verizon couldn’t have the iPhone, so they pushed that as their equivalent with a huge marketing campaign. Always felt to me like that single-handedly pushed Android into the public consciousness.

Like without that maybe Android would be huge, but we updated have gotten the name recognition. Or at least not so fast, and instead would have been more of an implementation detail in most people’s minds.

Sprint tried to compete with the Palm Pre which was neat but had issues. Then Verizon got the Pre and Sprint’s last shot at relevance died.

link
bschmidt1 663 days ago
Yeah it was only available on AT&T and you couldn't even send pictures (MMS). Hindsight is 20/20 - the people in this thread are overly glamorizing Apple and smartphones in general now because it's easy after something was already successful (the number of influencers on this post is vomit-inducing). In reality smartphones were a tough sell at first, people didn't like the touchscreen at first, it took a ton of marketing push to get people used to them that took years. I was 21 years old when iPhone came out and remember it perfectly clear - also just google sales data. iPhone was selling single digit millions in the first years, nowhere near the 100+ million Razrs sold, or the amount Nokia or RIM were selling.

"But they were new to the space!" "It was still a good start!" is peripheral

link