Two Years Ago Today, This Was Still My Phone

GlennFleishman    says:

Mine was
It was failing for some time, and I'd owned it for four years. The paint had really started to fade off the phone. But I was determined not to get a new phone until I could get an actual organizer. I bought the 2G iPhone the day it went on sale, almost accidentally (I figured the lines would be too long). I waited in the AT&T line for 40 minutes until I found out that they were requiring the purchase of an unnecessary accessory kit to boost commissions and sales figures. Wound up going to the Apple Store that was feet away, where I waited for about 30 minutes to get the phone. (Probably 700 people had already bought theirs.)
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

reefdog    says:

Yup. Same here. Almost the same phone. (@gruber, not Glenn.)

The iPhone is the first cell phone I haven't hated. Had the Jitterbug's rate plans been reasonable, I actually would have started there. I would rather have no features than poorly-designed ones.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

zigziggityzoo    says:

I had a Razr V3i
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

k_aplin says:

This is sad. That Nokia is STILL my phone.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

FValletutti    says:

Treo 400p from Verizon was firmly strapped to my waist prior to the iPhone.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

urbanape    says:

I was on a Sony-Ericsson k750i that I ordered unlocked from Hong Kong.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

autoy says:

Come on, you got to admit it was sturdy.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

centreluke says:

Ah, the Motorola v190. It had a color screen (which was impressive to me at the time) and it had some shit Java bowling game that I played while in a waiting room bored out of my mind. There was some type of web browser on it, and I accidentally clicked on it once. I turned the phone off before it could pull any data from the heavens, scared of what might happen to both my phone and bill.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

torrez    says:

Mine was an unlocked k790i that I paid full price because nobody here would sell it. 3.2 MP camera, video, and a built in panorama stitching tool. The rest of the OS was nearly useless though.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

reefdog    says:

Wait, I lied.

See, I bought my iPhone used a few days after the iPhone 3G was released in June 08. Knowing a friend was going to upgrade and that I could swipe his original on the cheap, I switched to AT&T in April 08. Taking advantage of the nicer subsidized phones that a two-year contract afforded, I selected two free refurbished Sony Ericsson things, planning to eBay them.

One was eBay'ed immediately for $160 (my wife preferred her old Nokia, which she still uses), and I used the other for two months before eBaying it as well (for $130). Hated that phone.

Finally the 3G was released, the friend upgraded, and I bought his EDGE 8GB for $125. Made out pretty sweet on that whole deal.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

david wogan    says:

It's amazing how far we've come.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

John Moltz    says:

Razr. Ah, we were all so young and stupid! And the crazy hairstyles we had!

I remember I wasn't going to get an iPhone, at least not immediately, and then I was talking about it with my wife on release night as I was reading about you bastards in line on Twitter and she said "You probably need to get one, right?" And I said "Yeah. Yeah! I probably do!"
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

riddle_    says:

I sense a meme approaching.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

CDubber says:

I had the same phone as Glenn (Sony T610), may it burn in Heck. One of the worst objects I've ever had the misfortune to own/use. It was a good thing it came with a removable battery, because I had to remove the battery 3-4 times a day just to reboot the stupid phone. Illegible display outdoors, inadequate sound volume, clumsy UI, joystick stopped working reliably after a year. A complete and utter POS.

I suffered with that phone for far too long, only because there were whisperings of an Apple phone in the works (for far too long) and I was holding out for it.

The day of the iPhone announcement was my favorite day in tech history.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

andreas_krautwald    says:

I can beat that, before the iPhone, this was my phone:



Motorola F3: e-ink display and very long batterylife - no other features
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

kongjie says:

Here's the beginning of the promo material for my Motorola V551 that I just replaced with a 3GS:

For those who want it all, the Motorola V551 delivers a mobile menu guaranteed to please. If it’s advanced multi-media you crave, the model V551 offers a VGA camera, one-touch video capture and playback, and preloaded FotoFun Photo Editor for easy on-the-run image editing.

Unbelievable. As if it was ever a real multimedia device. Within a day I gave up using that phone for ANYTHING but phone calls. Just like I gave up on my Palm Pilot in the late 90s. I didn't think I would appreciate an iPhone but then was given it as a birthday present. It pretty much achieves everything I wanted my Palm and Motorola to be.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Adrian Nier    says:

K800i and still use it as a 3G-Bluetooth-Adapter for my MacBook Pro and to dial phone numbers from LaunchBar. T-Mobile Germany offers something called MultiSIM, which means you can use the same plan for up to three phones.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Kyle Batson    says:

Classic. My fav phone before the iPhone was a slightly older Nokia with a b&w screen. No bullshit games or stupid hierarchy of menus which made everything impossible to find.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

SeanM1411 says:

OH the irony, that is my exact phone today, until my waitlisted 32Gb comes into stock from VodaFone.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

torrez    says:

Adrian just reminded me, my k790i also did tethering very easily.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

infodriveway says:

Andreas... I've long liked the basic look of the Moto F3... very simple, and no features.

This was my prior phone: S710a
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

_nickd    says:

before i bought my iphone 1y ago, i had a blackberry pearl with a non-functioning trackball whose battery was depleted in ~4h of idled use and a busted "GH" key. suffice to say i was holding out for the 3G model.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

pawlikk    says:

Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

reppep_reppep says:

I had 4 Treo 600s (not very reliable hardware) and a couple 650s. Donated/recycled the 650 last week, actually. People always assume I'm a foaming-at-the-mouth Mac & iPhone fanatic, and I have to explain that I much prefer Linux servers for my bread & butter, and I'm hoooked on *smartphones*.

I was a very heavy-duty Palm user, and a Newton user before that. The iPhone is much better than the 600 or 650, but that's hardly a surprise -- it's a much newer & more sophisticated device. When I got the 650, its 320*320 screen was the missing link, and I was very happy with it.

I had to carry a CrackBerry Curve for most of last year for work. It was quite usable, but also a clear demonstration of how the iPhone is superior.

That said, I'm on my 3rd iPhone (Amy has my 'old' 3G), and I now have a testbed ready for iPhone OS 4b, if it will run original EDGE hardware someday...
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

f399us says:

Nokia 33something! I can't believe that I had the same phone as the great John Gruber.

I only miss the battery life of that phone.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

gl3n    says:

The old phone I had before I bought my iPhone was a Motorola PEBL. I got it free with a 2 year contract extension. It was a flip phone, so I could toss it in my pocket with my keys and didn't have to worry about scratching the screen. The battery lasted about 4 days before it needed to be recharged. When I lost the charger, a replacement cost $3 plus shipping on Ebay. It was GSM quad-band and worked without a hitch from the English country side, Cambodia and the Caribbean. I could do Bluetooth tethering to my MacBook Pro. (Okay, very slow tethering but it worked for email.) It had Bluetooth OBEX push to send photos to the Mac. I could dial a number with one hand in 2 button presses. I could send and receive MMS messages. I could record videos. I could check the time without pressing any buttons or turning on the phone. Ahh, the good old days.
Gandalf: "The Phone is still in your pocket."
Bilbo: "Oh, yes… so it is."
Now that I have tethering and voice control on my 3GS, I'm this much closer to abandoning my Motorola. But until then, i carry both.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

aegisshaun says:

2 years ago it was a Sony Ericsson P910i which was about 2 years old then. Touchscreen, video recording, mms, push email, todo list, calendar and perfect iSync syncing. The iPhone 2G was too primitive for me.

I only just got rid of the P910i when the iPhone 3GS came out. I replaced it with a Nokia E71. The iPhone 3GS is still too primitive and poorly built.

When the iPhone does background apps and VoIP, lasts 2 days in use (1500mA battery in the E71) and is smaller and doesn't cost 3 times as much as an E71, then I'll switch, maybe. And bring back the metal back - the E71 uses stainless steel and is a joy to hold. No plastic where you hold it.

I had a T610 too, that was totally problem free for me but slow and the screen sucked. Before that, Nokia 6310i which I've still got as a backup - battery lasts 2 weeks and it's built like a tank!
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

JohnnyLeCanuck    says:

I was rocking the Treo 700p, but I've owned and loved at least 4 Nokia's all time fave was the Quad band 6320 with BT follow by the most awesome 3210.

Did this have the built-in flash light?
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

mfennessy says:

Until launch day of the 3G I carried a Motorola SLVR. I bought it because I liked the design of the RAZR but was always a candybar kind of guy. Turned out to be the first real iTunes phone, but that wasn't part of my original purchase decision. I got it ridiculously cheap with a free Bluetooth headset during some deal that CompUSA was having with Cingular. Imagine my surprise when I got the JesusPhone home and found it completely lacked voice dialing. I love my iPhone, but I'm still amazed that to get VoiceDialing 3 years after my SLVR debuted, I have to upgrade to a whole new phone.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

junesix says:

I have that exact phone and I still keep it for trips overseas where I can pop in a local SIM card. The near-infinite battery life is indispensable in unfamiliar lands.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

kurafire    says:

You should start a group/pool, "This Was My Phone" for photos of the phone you had until you got your first iPhone.

(I don't even remember what phone I had myself, just that it sucked and I hated using it)
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Julian Moffatt    says:

I had the "amazing" Blackberry 7250. I left a grandfathered plan with my local Telco (where I got free weekends and Mondays!) for Rogers. Us Canadians had to wait an extra year for our iPhones.

The hardest part about it was that I had to tell my left winger of 10 years that I was no longer going to be using his mobile companies services. That hurt me more than him I'm sure.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Alvaro's Pix    says:

This was mine:



After a long wait for finding the correct device Apple came to the rescue.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Sparticus    says:

Without starting some troll war or whatever, but all you commentors are yanks aren't you. Because back in the day (9 and a lot years ago when I was 16) it was all about phoning and texting people and for that the crappy Nokia 3210 (or later 3310/30 that was smaller and had
snake 2) was the bees knees. And that was the phone that western Europe had. Obviously the iPhone is the dog's bollocks (the bees knees +10 smiting) but there were good phones before then. Even phones good enough to use as a PDA (my Nokia 6680 and N80
both iSync'd brilliantly and redundanted my diary). Obviously as far away from my iPhone as they were from 2 tin cans and a string but still damn good phones (as long as you didn't try to use them to write Flickr comments on the toilet.)
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Terry Maraccini says:

Great phone
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

mieky    says:

Really. Two years ago my phone had 3G, IMAPIDLE-capable mail, ran third party apps in the background and had a webkit browser capable of AJAX. I had a choice of networks, an eighteen month contract, and an SSH client and multi-protocol IM client on day one. Europe, it's a funny place.

But I've got a spare AMEN BROTHER! if any of you need one. :)
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Riccardo Mori    says:

Before the iPhone 3G, I kept using some old mobile phones, favouring the Sony CMD Z7. Believe it or not, despite its tiny size the battery still lasts a day, more or less.

Cheers
Rick
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

chefmitch says:

I was using the Motorola SLVR (complete piece of crap).

Kept the original iPhone for 2 years and now have the iPhone 3GS.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Shanghai Daddy    says:

Mine.

and
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

ronald_poi    says:

This was mine. Can't believe how fast time goes by...
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

can4spam says:

A 6-year old Ericsson T39; what a love/hate that was. A 2000 phone that would Bluetooth sync with my iCal and Address Book. I was holding out for a full screen phone that used Ink or Graffiti, like the Ming. The iPhone missed 7 of my must have points but my son gave it to me for my birthday.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

cloveras    says:

I used a Nokia E65 (look at it! ha-ha-ha!):


Today I have an iPhone 3G, and a quite new free-from-my-employer N95 lying unused in a drawer (with the same horrible operating system as the E65).
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Kevan Emmott    says:

Repurposing one meme for another ("The Items we carry"):


Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Solimander says:

@kevan You drive a Saab? Sweet! What kind? I have a 2002 9-3.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Jim Lafferty    says:

Hah, I had the same exact phone!
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Kevan Emmott    says:

2001 9-3 Convertible. We've since replaced the VW with a GMC Acadia.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

sg_harrison    says:

Just got my iphone 3GS!. I had an older iphone 2g, which I imported from the USA in 2007 and hacked it to work in Oz.

I have to keep remembering how revolutionary these phones are, I tell people I've upgraded from my ancient 2G iphone to the 3GS, and yet the 2G is still light years better than any other phone available in Oz, except the 3G/3GS. Plenty of people have offered to take the 2G off my hands, but my wife got in first, its her's now.

I'm also loving the fact I could buy it unlocked from the apple store in Sydney, I can upgrade the software without having to wait for the hacks.

Apart from this the only other phone I ever really liked was my nokia 8210 I got back in 1999. I had that phone for years, it was small and battery lasted for ever. But it only ever was a phone. The 3GS is a pocket computer that makes phone calls, plays videos, takes pictures, plays music and gives me directions.
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

88michael says:

Does it still work?
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )