Today is the 15th anniversary of the first commercially available mass produced GSM mobile phone - the Nokia 1011. I remember the time before GSM phones were the norm when people would carry ridiculously large ART compatible carphones that look more like toolboxes. Good times. Now GSM with its unique SIM card implementation is the widest and most adopted of mobile technology. What was once a luxury is now affordable throw away commodity.
Incidentally my first GSM mobile was the Motorola StarTAC 75+. It was a cutting edge mobile back then and did everything I wanted that the Iphone can, and easier (it has a keypad after all) too.
Speaking of mobile phones, it is good to see my license fee being spent on unnecessary and frankly undeserved amount of coverage on an unproven, sub par and technologically challenged phone. BBC's technology (and the majority of mainstream UK media) coverage is starting to look more like Engadget's and Gizmodo's.
Update: I went to Brent Cross today to shop for a cheap phone for a relative. Carphone Warehouse and O2 were almost empty with nobody buying the much hyped phone. I even witness a sale of an old school N95 without 8GB. Granted I only spent about 15 minutes in each store but it wasn't the 'rush' and 'surge' that the media would have liked us to believe. The Apple Store here was crowded as usual but the people here were mainly made up with the standard conscript of iSheeps, minders and not too many phone purchasers.
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