Well, before Apple, most phones were appliances with fixed software; there was no openness to speak of. That said, I wish they hadn't continued this trend and instead took inspiration from Windows Mobile.

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Karliss 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Before iphone mobile phones were running Java applets, which were sometimes even compatible across different phone manufacturers and users even could exchange them over infrared. In contrast first iPhone initially had no support for third party software, only web apps.

	▲	throw0101d 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Before iphone mobile phones were running Java applets, which were sometimes even compatible across different phone manufacturers and users even could exchange them over infrared. "Sometimes" doing a lot of heavy lifting. Nokia had an app store, and before you could see the available apps you have to first choose your phone: because even with-in Nokia's own product range there was so much variation in screens, keyboards, and general capabilities that they had to pre-apply a filter to show you what would actually work.
	▲	naravara 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Functionally nobody was doing any of those things.

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Ygg2 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure, at the start, yes.

But then came Java and Wap. You could, in theory, download a jar from a site and try to run it. God knows if it would run. But it wasn't a locked-down app store that bypassing would land you in hot water.