Ladies and Gentlemen: The iPhone!
April 14, 2008 2:25 PM Subscribe
The wonders of technology! Browse the web, access your email, telephone your clients - all with the aid of a 7 inch touch screen. It's the iPhone!
iHoax, amiriteyriterite?
(seriously-- what is that "cord-thingey" attached to the handset?)
posted by Dizzy at 2:31 PM on April 14, 2008
(seriously-- what is that "cord-thingey" attached to the handset?)
posted by Dizzy at 2:31 PM on April 14, 2008
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:33 PM on April 14, 2008 [5 favorites]
"G4"!?! And here I've been waiting for the G2! How did they skip two generations without the interwebs hearing of it?
posted by paddysat at 2:35 PM on April 14, 2008
posted by paddysat at 2:35 PM on April 14, 2008
It appears to be for real. There are hits all over the place in the 97-98 timeframe. It also appears to have been spectacularly unsuccessful. Reminds me of a minitel, minus the retro fun.
posted by phooky at 2:35 PM on April 14, 2008
posted by phooky at 2:35 PM on April 14, 2008
Wasn't there a big legal to-do about this, shortly before the iPhone launched? I seem to remember hearing that they were tentatively switching to (Apple Logo)Phone, before they worked out a deal.
posted by roll truck roll at 2:54 PM on April 14, 2008
posted by roll truck roll at 2:54 PM on April 14, 2008
No, that was the Cisco iPhone.
Legal action from Cidco being filed as we speak
posted by cillit bang at 2:57 PM on April 14, 2008
Legal action from Cidco being filed as we speak
posted by cillit bang at 2:57 PM on April 14, 2008
Legal action from Cidco being filed as we speak
Does that mean that there's someone out there that just now remembered that they made an "iPhone" back in the day?
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 3:01 PM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
Does that mean that there's someone out there that just now remembered that they made an "iPhone" back in the day?
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 3:01 PM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
For those just joining us... InfoGear and CIDCO launched the iPhone in the late 90s. Cisco acquired InfoGear, then sued Apple after the launch of the Apple iPhone for trademark infringement. They settled last year. I think the Cisco (Linksys) iPhone is still out there if you want it.
posted by Kabanos at 3:03 PM on April 14, 2008
posted by Kabanos at 3:03 PM on April 14, 2008
For what it's worth, a 7 inch screen works quite well for my Asus eee.
posted by Kickstart70 at 3:13 PM on April 14, 2008
posted by Kickstart70 at 3:13 PM on April 14, 2008
Not in the least a hoax. I own one. It was a Christmas gift from my employer circa 1999, BigPlanet/NuSkin.
I don't know much about the manufacturer, Cidco, but BigPlanet was essentially an MLM ISP. I think the iPhone was there to give sales reps something to sell to people who didn't have a computer and weren't particularly interested in getting one, but might be interested in this email and WWW thing. You got the phone, you signed up for dialup service for the phone, and you were on the internet.
With the phone they gave us for Christmas, we got a month or two of free ISP service. I tried it out and was surprised to find it a basically useful product -- I think it did some image munging/dropping as part of the rendering, and it was only grayscale (16 color?), but it rendered most of HTML 3.2, some Javascript, it did resolutions up to 640x480. . And it was/is a pretty cool phone, even though it's not cordless. The touchscreen was nice for navigating caller id, calling people back, and this is certainly the only non-mobile phone I've ever bothered to collect a contact directory in (again, easy with the touch screen). It also had a decent speaker phone. All this made it a great phone for, say, a bedroom or office desk, even if you might not want it as the master phone for the house.
I think if somebody had sold these things really cheaply or even with competitive pricing for the dialup data service, this device or something like it could have found a decent niche and caught on somewhat.
But my recollection is that like just about everything BigPlanet (and most MLMs) sold, they really weren't price competitive. The iPhone was something like $299, and the monthly service was something like $25/month. A full-fledged computer could be had for a few hundred more and Earthlink was $20/month. And hey, some ISPs were doing what cell phone companies do now, signing subscribers up for a contract term and giving them a computer for something like $30-$50 a month. Too many feature/price competitive options.
Not to mention some other problems with the MLM model and the inevitable upgradability problems as WWW client tech marched forward.
But still, it's a pretty good phone.
posted by weston at 3:14 PM on April 14, 2008 [3 favorites]
I don't know much about the manufacturer, Cidco, but BigPlanet was essentially an MLM ISP. I think the iPhone was there to give sales reps something to sell to people who didn't have a computer and weren't particularly interested in getting one, but might be interested in this email and WWW thing. You got the phone, you signed up for dialup service for the phone, and you were on the internet.
With the phone they gave us for Christmas, we got a month or two of free ISP service. I tried it out and was surprised to find it a basically useful product -- I think it did some image munging/dropping as part of the rendering, and it was only grayscale (16 color?), but it rendered most of HTML 3.2, some Javascript, it did resolutions up to 640x480. . And it was/is a pretty cool phone, even though it's not cordless. The touchscreen was nice for navigating caller id, calling people back, and this is certainly the only non-mobile phone I've ever bothered to collect a contact directory in (again, easy with the touch screen). It also had a decent speaker phone. All this made it a great phone for, say, a bedroom or office desk, even if you might not want it as the master phone for the house.
I think if somebody had sold these things really cheaply or even with competitive pricing for the dialup data service, this device or something like it could have found a decent niche and caught on somewhat.
But my recollection is that like just about everything BigPlanet (and most MLMs) sold, they really weren't price competitive. The iPhone was something like $299, and the monthly service was something like $25/month. A full-fledged computer could be had for a few hundred more and Earthlink was $20/month. And hey, some ISPs were doing what cell phone companies do now, signing subscribers up for a contract term and giving them a computer for something like $30-$50 a month. Too many feature/price competitive options.
Not to mention some other problems with the MLM model and the inevitable upgradability problems as WWW client tech marched forward.
But still, it's a pretty good phone.
posted by weston at 3:14 PM on April 14, 2008 [3 favorites]
The great thing is that the ad copy is totally reusable. A simple google search could have saved Apple's marketing department millions. Or thousands:
"At $479, the iPhone isn't cheap, but it's still considerably cheaper than the average PC or Macintosh system. For newbies or those who don't like to work with computers, it offers access to email and the Web. Even experienced computer users might consider the iPhone an excellent addition to the kitchen or bedside table, since it offers more online access in a smaller space than any other device we've seen, along with a regular phone."
posted by mecran01 at 3:23 PM on April 14, 2008
"At $479, the iPhone isn't cheap, but it's still considerably cheaper than the average PC or Macintosh system. For newbies or those who don't like to work with computers, it offers access to email and the Web. Even experienced computer users might consider the iPhone an excellent addition to the kitchen or bedside table, since it offers more online access in a smaller space than any other device we've seen, along with a regular phone."
posted by mecran01 at 3:23 PM on April 14, 2008
Anyone who's had to do tech support for their family/friends/etc..., and values there time at more than minimum wage, should appreciate products like the Cidco iPhone, and/or thin client terminals in general. It's about TCO, and if someone just needs a machine for email only, that was a damn good option.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:38 PM on April 14, 2008
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:38 PM on April 14, 2008
Anyone who's had to do tech support for their family/friends/etc..., and values there time at more than minimum wage, should appreciate products like the Cidco iPhone, and/or thin client terminals in general. It's about TCO, and if someone just needs a machine for email only, that was a damn good option.
We got my grandmother a MailStation for just that reason. It was a nice little device. She abandoned it due to some percieved slight suffered at the hands of the rest of the family (the only reason she does anything, really), but got quite a bit of use and enjoyment out of it.
posted by Rock Steady at 3:49 PM on April 14, 2008
We got my grandmother a MailStation for just that reason. It was a nice little device. She abandoned it due to some percieved slight suffered at the hands of the rest of the family (the only reason she does anything, really), but got quite a bit of use and enjoyment out of it.
posted by Rock Steady at 3:49 PM on April 14, 2008
Aside from the grayscale screen, the iPhone's biggest problem is that it doesn't currently support frames.
Wow...I have to say that was forward thinking of them. Imagine if they had also been unable to support popups!
posted by salishsea at 4:31 PM on April 14, 2008 [2 favorites]
Wow...I have to say that was forward thinking of them. Imagine if they had also been unable to support popups!
posted by salishsea at 4:31 PM on April 14, 2008 [2 favorites]
I can't wait for that crazy guy at roughlydrafted to work this into some bizarre conspiracy involving Microsoft, Cisco, MSNBC, the Pope, Dvorak, and lots of Windows columnists.
posted by meehawl at 4:41 PM on April 14, 2008
posted by meehawl at 4:41 PM on April 14, 2008
The article is from 1998.
So I guess the point is that it has the same name as the Apple iPhone?
Kabanos already summed up what happened, and afaik it was pretty common knowledge - i.e. every major newspaper covered the Cisco/Apple trademark lawsuit.
Did I miss something or is this post pretty much worthless then?
posted by zekinskia at 5:20 PM on April 14, 2008
So I guess the point is that it has the same name as the Apple iPhone?
Kabanos already summed up what happened, and afaik it was pretty common knowledge - i.e. every major newspaper covered the Cisco/Apple trademark lawsuit.
Did I miss something or is this post pretty much worthless then?
posted by zekinskia at 5:20 PM on April 14, 2008
This reminds me of when my aunt thought it'd be a great idea to get Web TV for my grandpa Bud, who is practically deaf and almost blind.
posted by autodidact at 6:17 PM on April 14, 2008
posted by autodidact at 6:17 PM on April 14, 2008
I find it amusing that cidco.com redirects to Earthlink.
posted by jeffamaphone at 6:24 PM on April 14, 2008
posted by jeffamaphone at 6:24 PM on April 14, 2008
It's real all right. I was writing a telecom industry newsletter at the time covering AIN (Advanced Intelligent Network) services, and we were talking about this thing a lot. There was a lot of hope for it in certain carrier circles.
The telco signalling network was kind of like a basic internet for telephone switches, and they were starting to realize that they could do a lot more than call setup with it. They could offer a variety of value added services over the system, everything from call forwarding to services that would let you pick up your phone and get the name of that song you're hearing on the radio right now. The problem was that the installed base of network terminals weren't really meant to handle anything more sophisticated than voice and touch tones. If they could have replaced all those phones with something that had a screen and a keyboard, it would have made those services a lot easier to use, and thus a lot easier to deploy.
Yeah, it was kind of like trying to make a more efficient steam engine, but that's telcos for you. Indeed in other telco circles it was considered unnatural and insane, like Cidco was trespassing in God's domain and no good could come of it.
posted by Naberius at 9:41 PM on April 14, 2008
The telco signalling network was kind of like a basic internet for telephone switches, and they were starting to realize that they could do a lot more than call setup with it. They could offer a variety of value added services over the system, everything from call forwarding to services that would let you pick up your phone and get the name of that song you're hearing on the radio right now. The problem was that the installed base of network terminals weren't really meant to handle anything more sophisticated than voice and touch tones. If they could have replaced all those phones with something that had a screen and a keyboard, it would have made those services a lot easier to use, and thus a lot easier to deploy.
Yeah, it was kind of like trying to make a more efficient steam engine, but that's telcos for you. Indeed in other telco circles it was considered unnatural and insane, like Cidco was trespassing in God's domain and no good could come of it.
posted by Naberius at 9:41 PM on April 14, 2008
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posted by Saddo at 2:30 PM on April 14, 2008