One of the posters questioned whether there was ever a handheld with an easy, intuitive UI before the iPhone. In 2004, Sony released the TH55 Clie handheld. The Th55 had a beautiful 320 X 480 screen, large icons on the home screen, clear text display, choice of home page layouts, and ran any of the thousands of Palm OS third party apps. The included browser supported the standards used in 2004, and would display a squished full width version of web pages similar to the feature that Apple shows as something new in their 2007 commercials. It also had a chipset that facilitated 30 fps video, an expansion slot, and both Bluetooth/WiFI (UK model). It was not a phone, but could easily be tethered to one via Bluetooth. A Memory Stick VCR was an option to allow recording TV shows directly to a MS, and viewing them on the Clie without transcoding.
The TH55 did not have all the eye candy the iPhone does, but it had many more capabilities, was easy to use, had a great 320 x 480 screen, fine text display, had true 3rd party app support, and did an excellent job displaying 2004 era web pages. Because it had several web page display modes, you could display some pages without all the horizontal scrolling, pinching etc. required to view a page with readable text on the iPhone / iPod Touch. When the Apple CEO showed the iPhone at MacWorld in January 2004, my first thought is that looks like a TH55 that lost a little weight.
I am not saying the iPhone is bad. It is certainly a cool device; however, it is not the first with a nice screen, full web support, and an nice UI. I also had several VGA resolution Windows Mobile devices that had fantastic looking screens for text, graphics, and video.
It is getting late. I, of course, meant MacWorld 2007, not MacWorld 2004. The TH55 came with a stylus, but frequently I use my finger for navigation rather than the stylus. When I am surfing a webpage with tightly grouped web links, I wish the iPhone / iPod Touch accepted Stylus input, not just finger input. I am not saying the 2004 TH55's interface was as slick as the 2007 Apple products. I am saying, the TH55 was intuitive, easy to use, had a great screen, displayed full webpages, and preceded the iPhone by 3 years.
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One of the posters questioned whether there was ever a handheld with an easy, intuitive UI before the iPhone. In 2004, Sony released the TH55 Clie handheld. The Th55 had a beautiful 320 X 480 screen, large icons on the home screen, clear text display, choice of home page layouts, and ran any of the thousands of Palm OS third party apps. The included browser supported the standards used in 2004, and would display a squished full width version of web pages similar to the feature that Apple shows as something new in their 2007 commercials. It also had a chipset that facilitated 30 fps video, an expansion slot, and both Bluetooth/WiFI (UK model). It was not a phone, but could easily be tethered to one via Bluetooth. A Memory Stick VCR was an option to allow recording TV shows directly to a MS, and viewing them on the Clie without transcoding.
The TH55 did not have all the eye candy the iPhone does, but it had many more capabilities, was easy to use, had a great 320 x 480 screen, fine text display, had true 3rd party app support, and did an excellent job displaying 2004 era web pages. Because it had several web page display modes, you could display some pages without all the horizontal scrolling, pinching etc. required to view a page with readable text on the iPhone / iPod Touch. When the Apple CEO showed the iPhone at MacWorld in January 2004, my first thought is that looks like a TH55 that lost a little weight.
I am not saying the iPhone is bad. It is certainly a cool device; however, it is not the first with a nice screen, full web support, and an nice UI. I also had several VGA resolution Windows Mobile devices that had fantastic looking screens for text, graphics, and video.
It is getting late. I, of course, meant MacWorld 2007, not MacWorld 2004. The TH55 came with a stylus, but frequently I use my finger for navigation rather than the stylus. When I am surfing a webpage with tightly grouped web links, I wish the iPhone / iPod Touch accepted Stylus input, not just finger input. I am not saying the 2004 TH55's interface was as slick as the 2007 Apple products. I am saying, the TH55 was intuitive, easy to use, had a great screen, displayed full webpages, and preceded the iPhone by 3 years.