Apps. Gerard Goggin

users and developers may have over these tools and the software possibilities of their systems (Ceruzzi, 2003; Kelty, 2008). Such devices include handheld electronic calculators (Hamrick, 1996; McGovern, 2019), which attempted to replace the slide rule. For instance, Hewlett-Packard’s HP-65 calculator of 1974 offered “full programmability,” featuring “interchangeable magnetic cards as storage media for factory and user programs” (McGovern, 2019, p. 300).

      A direct descendant of the smartphone is the family of devices variously called “handheld computers,” “palmtop computers,” and “portable digital assistants” (PDAs), the last term being one coined by Apple’s CEO John Sculley (Sakakibara et al., 1995). The PDA was patented in 1975, and Toshiba is credited with bringing it to the market for the first time, in 1980 (Golder et al., 2009). The UK computer firm Amstrad introduced its PenPad in early 1993, just ahead of Apple’s Newton MessagePad launched later that year, which featured built-in apps with web, email, calendar, and address book functions (Sakakibara et al., 1995). The Newton is claimed by some to have made a breakthrough; it had attributes that anticipated the smartphone OS and apps environment (Foley, 2000). It gained a strong following, and its brand community persisted in using it with quasi-religious fervor even after the device was abandoned (Muñiz & Schau, 2005).

Three electronics companies known for their calculators also launched PDAs: Hewlett Packard, Casio, and Sharp—which by the early 1990s dominated the personal organizer market in the United States (Glazer et al., 2017). In 1986 Psion launched its EPOC device, which featured the Symbian OS with basic applications such as a diary. Microsoft adapted its Windows 95 desktop OS, launching Windows CE for the PDA market (Foley, 2000). In this highly competitive market, the dominant provider was Jeff Hawkin’s Palm Computing, famous for its Palm Pilot launched in 1996, which claimed 51 percent of the market in its first year (Chaston, 2016) and eventually 70 percent of the market and 10 million users worldwide (Foley, 2000). Pilloried as a “cult” (Brookshaw et al., 1997), the Palm Pilot also enjoyed a thriving applications ecosystem, boasting over 50,000 developers (Foley, 2000).

      In many ways, PDAs referred to a range of different things that might be combined together: “palmtops,” which were “‘miniature’ PCs … which use keyboards and run versions of PC software like Lotus 1-2-3 and word processors”; “electronic organizers”; “mobile telephones which combine a portable telephone with computer capabilities,” for example BellSouth and IBM’s 1994 Simon product; and “pen-based computers” such as Motorola’s Envoy (an early example of the persistence of stylus tools in mobile and portable devices) (Sakakibara et al., 1995, pp. 23–24). The applications had developed considerably in the intervening 15 or so years. Apart from their usefulness for office and home, PDAs were being considered and deployed around a range of specific settings: health, medical care, and nursing, diet and nutrition, education, disability support, safety inspections, and so on (Boudreau, 2010). One notable PDA app, for example, was a reader, not only for the Internet but also for newspaper and magazine content (Foley, 2000). On the cusp of the smartphone moment, there were at least four different PDA OS and eco-systems: Symbian, Palm, Linux, and Microsoft PDA (Quirce García, 2011).

PDAs and handhelds are one obvious family of handheld devices, often associated with business and work uses. However, there is another set of handhelds that feeds into the artifact and media characteristics of the smartphone (Collins, 2014), as well as into the form, function, and dynamics of apps. These are game devices. Consider, for instance, Mattel’s 1977 Auto Race, credited with being the “first fully electronic handheld game ever released” (Dillon, 2011, p. 162), and its top-selling 1978 Football Game (Collins, 2014). Or consider one of the most famous video games of all time—Tetris. Tetris started life as a board game, then was redesigned successively for early computers, TV consoles, and handheld devices such as the Nintendo’s 1989 Game Boy (Ackerman, 2016). In 1994, Sony released its PlayStation in Japan, which entrenched the dominance of CD-based games (Dillon, 2011, p. xxi). Mass market commercial online games arrived within the decade, which was marked for instance by Microsoft’s launch of its Xbox Live online gaming service in 2001 (Dillon, 2011, p. xxiv). An important milestone in mobile gaming is represented by Nokia’s N-Gage phone, one of its range of devices dedicated to a different kind of media, beloved by aficionados—in this case gamers (Goggin, 2006, 2011).

      Through the history of calculators, PDAs and palm pilots, and games devices we can recognize the importance of handhelds and their accompanying software as predecessors of present-day apps. Building on these insights, it is important to cast the net wider still and log the wide range of media affordances and cultures of use that crop up in later instances of smartphones, being creatively leveraged by apps—and this will be explored in greater depth in chapter 4. For the present, we will turn to the most obvious predecessors of apps after handhelds: application, data, and content services; and OSs associated with the first, second, and third generations of cellular mobile phones.

The first-generation analogue mobile phones that spanned the late 1970s to the mid-1990s were fairly rudimentary in terms of the programs and applications they could support. This is one key reason why during much of this period there remained a viable, burgeoning market for PDAs, palm tops, and the other handheld technologies we have just discussed. Operating system and software platform developments centered on 2G digital standard phones in their latter years and on their evolution to 3G networks and devices (Steinbock, 2007). In 1991 2G networks and phones were launched in Finland with the global system for mobile communications (GSM) standard (Hillebrand, 2002). Other 2G standards followed, such as the US code division multiple access (CDMA) standard, and also various standards in Japan, South Korea, and China. The 2G era was the decisive period for the diffusion of mobile phones, and one during which the technology was entrenched globally. It was an extended evolution, marked especially by a period of intense innovation associated with the mobile Internet, messaging, and data services, all under the 2.5G label (Noam & Steinbock, 2003). 3G was introduced first in Japan in 2001, then rolled out around the world. 3G featured significantly higher data transfer capabilities and video communication capabilities, but, owing to the high prices paid for spectrum and other issues, its take-up and diffusion were much slower than anticipated (Curwen & Whalley, 2009, 2010). It was followed by 4G, launching from 2012–2013 onwards—also a relatively convoluted affair, but one that entrenched mobile-Internet convergence (Curwen et al., 2019). 5G networks, with their close ties to the Internet of Things, commenced rollout in 2018–2019.

Despite the hype, these developments tended to be evolutionary in nature (Funk, 2002). As 2G developed, so too did networks, where digitization deepened. By the end of the 1990s, attention was increasingly focused on the phone as a zone for programming and applications. To underpin this situation, there were notable developments in OS for mobile phones. In 2000, for instance, Symbian released its first “fully integrated software platform for next generation mobile phones,” especially offering “core compatibility for third-party applications, content, and services” (The Mobile Internet Community, 2000). The OS covered data management and synchronization, graphics, and multimedia, as well as browser engines for WAP and HTML, highlighting the focus on programming applications for mobile Internet. Microsoft Windows was another key player in the mobile programming area, as was Linux. Programming languages included Python, Java 2 Micro Edition, C++, and Open C. As mobile programming researchers put it, in this period “developers may start to see the mobile phone as a collection of capabilities that can be reassembled on demand for a given purpose” (Fitzek & Reichert, 2007, p. 8). These purposes are things such as the user interface (e.g. speaker, microphone, camera, display, keyboard, sensor), the communication interface (cellular; and short-range connectivity such as WiFi, Wireless local area networks, and Bluetooth), and built-in resources (e.g. storage, CPU, and battery) (p. 8). Increasing numbers of developers were engaging in the mobile applications area, building on the efforts in the predecessor handheld, games, and other personal technologies that we have already reviewed. A key difficulty, however, lay in the structure and control of the mobile applications and data environment, and this cautionary advice captures it:

      before going all alone, a new service provider [e.g. who has developed an app] should consider the options offered by 3rd parties. All network providers (operators) are open to new ideas