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It literally created the modern smartphone market. The Palm Pilots and Blackberries of the day couldn’t compare: the iPhone had a FULL BROWSER. It was insane. The team developing Android saw the iPhone and had a real “holy shit” moment, they had to go back to the drawing board and completely start over in order to compete.

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gdog05@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Full browser might be an overstatement. It was still a web full of Flash at that time. And it caused a pretty major limitation on the browser. If there wasn’t an app available, you were often SOL. I do think it sped up the demise of Flash on the web considerably.

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- ISometimesAdmin@the.coolest.zone ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  I do think it sped up the demise of Flash on the web considerably.
  
  That's unironically an innovation right there
  
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  - rottingleaf@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Why? It was a decent technology.
    
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    ISometimesAdmin@the.coolest.zone ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    No, it absolutely wasn't, as can testify anyone who actually had to work with it:
    https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/the-death-of-adobes-flash-is-lingering-not-sudden/
    
    There are lots of good reasons to get rid of Flash. Browser makers say it's a top sore spot for security, performance and shorter battery life.
    
    https://tedium.co/2021/01/01/adobe-flash-demise-history/
    
    Usability means a few things in this context—simplicity, ease of use, convention, and accessibility. Flash was none of those things. It took the blank-canvas approach to creativity—which was great for the artists and illustrators that originally made up its target audience, but morphed into numerous other forms that it wasn’t necessarily designed for. It fell into overuse and quickly became abused by others.
    
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    Exec@pawb.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Not really. To have fresh dynamic content having to install a third party plugin is a bad take. Web development was stagnating due to IE’s market dominance.
    
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- PeachMan@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Sure, a browser minus Flash, but it was still a real browser. Most of the web functioned without Flash. And none of the competition even had anything close. It was such a revolutionary product that the iPhone didn’t even HAVE competition until Android got its shit together, which took a couple years.
  
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- zurohki@aussie.zone ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This. Being able to actually open all those sites that used Flash was a big advantage of Android back then.
  
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  - PeachMan@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah, Android had that advantage LATER, when they got their shit together. But when the iPhone initially released, it changed the game.
    
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