2006-2007: my most exciting personal 12 months in smartphone history

I know what you're thinking. I'm about to parrot other journos by declaring that the smartphone world started in 2007 with the launch of the Apple iPhone. Err... no. Not even close. Although the iPhone gets a small footnote below, smartphones were a 'thing' several years before, culminating in the period from July 2006 to August 2007 when three devices came along in quick succession that knocked me for six. They all ran Symbian OS in the guise of 'S60 3rd Edition', but they had very different characters and USPs. In each case, I was left breathless with excitement in even touching them. Hyperbole? Maybe, but let me expand...

The story so far. From 2002 to 2005, we'd had an avalanche of 'smartphones', depending on when you start counting. I define a smartphone as a phone which has an OS capable of running third party applications, in which case the smartphone world had Symbian OS, in the guise of Nokia with their 'S60' nav-key driven interface, and Sony Ericsson with their touch interface 'UIQ'. Plus a few other Symbian licensees of lesser note. But all could run third party applications - just download them from the web at the time and they installed fine.

Also smartphones were the Windows Mobile-powered full-touch interface 'pocket PCs', almost all made by HTC but badged by other manufacturers. And Handspring (borne of Palm) had launched its Treo series of smartphones running Palm OS. 

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