Android is my favorite currently, but when I was growing up it was Symbian, comparing it to java it was miles ahead with way more advanced capabilities!
Growing up, it was Windows Phone. That was the first time I remember being able to install user-created apps on a phone. I spent so much time playing old SNES games on an emulator on my T-Mobile Dash when I was in high school.
Symbian! Way ahead of its time, and it could've still been with us if Nokia had been awake and aware in 2007. Unfortunately they were lead by an idiot. You could do most things that you do these days on Android and iOS. I installed Doom, Carmageddon, and a bunch of apps, including emulators. This was in 2003. I still have a Nokia 6600 and an E61 laying around.
yeah i was so surprised that symbian disappeared. but then i saw what iphone had to offer and agreed. still symbian had a lot better games and graphics than the first iphone
UIQ 3 based on Symbian. Mostly used by Sony Ericsson's PDAs during 00's. What a system that was. Supporting touch, Java apps and more. I had it on SE G900. Too bad that era did not last longer, it was soon before Android hit first models of HTC and Google G1.
UIQ 3... that's a name I haven't heard in a long long time. I had the Sony Ericsson P1 with the wacky qwerty keyboard and used some half baked blackberry email software. Thinking back, it seems so primitive, but there was actually quite a lot of functionality. I remember connecting it to an external Bluetooth GPS receiver to do navigation since there was no built in GPS!
Don't hate on me, but I was a big fan of windows fan... I still can't get anything to come close to replacing the friends hub that allowed you to see contacts friends feeds in one app.
Windows phone was pretty cool. I never had one but they seemed fast and intuitive. I really liked that there was a 3rd major player - Android, iOS, Windows Phone. BlackBerry was still around but not really in the game anymore, and switched to Android anyway.
One of my friends still has an old Nokia Windows Phone and uses it as an MP3 player, claiming there's never been quite as perfect of a phone since.
(edit) and of course I had to figure it out anyways. gotta love wikipedia. probably this one: standard domestic phone 1950-1984 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_500_telephone I remember dialing it actually hurt my finger.
You guys knew your phone OS growing up? Up until I was around 14-15 I didn't have a phone. After which I got gifted random slide and flip phones from family. I remember being gifted an iPhone 3G at 16-17 around the time it was two years old and I had a lot of fun playing with it, jailbreaking it, and the like. I remember being very proud I was able to install a wallpaper on it haha.
I was gifted an android for graduating sigh school, I think it was the Sony Xperia Miro, and I absolutely adored it. I remember adoring their version of Android (2.3 point something iirc) as the skin was light and really nice looking compared to whatever bubbly skin Samsung and LG had going on. After that, I've been on Android consistently with a few stints of being gifted iPhones that I sold because I just wasn't a fan of the closed down ecosystem.
Speaking of, I still look fondly to Sony's skin around the time of KitKat. It was such a clean and organized design compared to the competition.
Edit: This ad for the Sony Xperia Sola is what sold me to Sony phones back in the day. It was such a sexy ad even though I never had the Sola.
WebOS was well ahead of its time, gesture control, cards, and it even had wireless charging! It's a shame it didn't work out for Palm, and I agree with keeb420 below ... I'm still pissed that HP killed the brand.
I've always been an android person, starting with cyanogenmod back in the day and now lineage, as well as plenty of xda forum unofficial aosp/cyanogen/lineage builds when I had phones that didn't have great official support. I dabbled with pureos and postmarketos but the app ecosystem is still developing for mobile linux and things like hibernation, modem sleep, and screen off notifications are a bit rocky.
Hopefully someday I'll be able to use an OS on my phone where I'm not blocked from apps because "we detected you're rooted even though you're not, no healthcare app for you" or "no contactless payment unless you're on a stock rom"
When I was 14 I got an Android Razr and it was amazing. Emulation, decent games, and great widgets. I got an iPhone afterwards and I’ve missed the android os more and more. The only reason I haven’t switched back is because iPhones are so handy for communication, but their customization and features really don’t feel as expansive.
I grew up with Nokia and Sony Ericsson devices, loved my W995.
I got my first smartphone when I was 19, it had Android 4 ICS and it was quite the upgrade (visually) from my friends' 2.3 devices.
My favorite though was Windows Phone 8.1 and eventually 10 that i bought later on.
same here, my first phones were ericsson and then nokia with the symbian os which i really loved! i always wanted a windows phone growing up because i was imagining that it was like a computer hahaha
hahaha yeah my first phone was a green screen one that only had one line for everything. so to text or do anything else you had to wait for it to scroll slowly, its so funny to me now
my problem with iphones is that when they release new models they update the previous ones to make them slower, so people feel like they have to buy the new one since the old is not working well anymore. I did love my iphone 4 though when it was working great!
This is true, though you can hang out on the older version for a while if you like. I stayed on iOS 15 for several months into iOS 16 because it was rock solid stable after getting a year's worth of patches.
iOS 16 is fine now, but the phone is definitely a little slower than it used to be, even with a fresh Apple-blessed battery.
I also miss my iPhone 4S, that thing felt SO good in hand.
yeah you could, but it just felt like a scummy move and I don't want to promote such actions, so since then i have always been getting android devices! i do still appreciate that iphone changed the world though
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