Springboard: the secret history of the first real smartphone (Full Documentary)

[Celerity]

A decade before Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, a tiny team of renegades imagined and tried to build the modern smartphone. Nearly forgotten by history, a little start-up called Handspring tried to make the future before it was ready. This is the story of the Treo.

[NJCher]

1. Hard to believe, but

This was only 10 years ago, or much of it, anyway.

I still have a PalmPilot in my tech cabinet. Can’t bear to throw it away.

We had some of the others, too. Being in business and traveling, my spouse bought numerous of these devices. I remember I was so jealous because he could write them all off, where I, as a teacher, could not.

So interesting that Jobs had sort of lost interest in mobile until that meeting.

Timing, timing, timing.

[NBachers]

2. Very interesting - Thanks for posting this.

[NJCher]

3. Also

It was so interesting to hear how it evolved and how difficult it was to get all the different parts right, like the radio or the phone part.

I had to laugh at the part about the phone directory with tabs.

At that time I was writing papers in grad school. I wrote one on exactly this topic—the evolution of the cellphone. On this one, I only got a B+ because my professor said I wasn’t critical enough about what issues would face us as a society.

If only I could have have sized up the privacy issues, but who knew?