> If we go further back in time, mobile phones were bricks used only by business people and tech enthusiasts. They didn't have mass market appeal because the technology wasn't there yet.
Mobile phones are something of a special case, if you ask me, because the technology for voice calls and several days of standby time arrived quite a bit before affordable service did.
In 1988 a stockbroker could make calls from his speedboat for $250/month, and by 1998 a teenager could call his parents after soccer practice for $10/month.
You could describe that as "the technology getting there" because of more efficient radio signalling schemes enabling lower prices. But you could also say the user offering was unchanged[1], and the most important difference was the price.
Mobile phones are something of a special case, if you ask me, because the technology for voice calls and several days of standby time arrived quite a bit before affordable service did.
In 1988 a stockbroker could make calls from his speedboat for $250/month, and by 1998 a teenager could call his parents after soccer practice for $10/month.
You could describe that as "the technology getting there" because of more efficient radio signalling schemes enabling lower prices. But you could also say the user offering was unchanged[1], and the most important difference was the price.
[1] Except for SMS and the snake game