I was an early adopter of the Handspring PDA and bought my Visor in blue in 1999. I learned to write notes on the device using the Griffiti writing system. It felt like the first usable handheld computer. It had its own eco-system with third-party vendors selling software and those Springboard cartridges. I almost bought the cell-phone cartridge, because I totally thought that combining the PDA with a mobile phone would be perfect. 

So when the Treo flip-phone/PDA came out I was on-board. Actually I “waited” until 2003 and bought the 300 model. When I began writing this post, I looked around was surprised to discover that I still have the little beastie. As cool as I thought it was, I replaced it in 2005 for the non-flip-phone Treo 650, which made me happy until the iPhone invasion of 2007. The Treos were great devices that approached what a mobile device could be. But, like the documentary said, they didn’t have the market pull to get the carriers to stop shooting themselves in the foot and really innovate. For example, surfing the web on my Treo was a joke. Nothing rendered properly and it was so slow to be useless. I could get my email, but it was clunky and slow. I rarely took pictures or videos on the devices because they were horrible. Here’s a painful example of a video I tried to capture of my friend, NEVA, playing at Taco Beach back in 2007 [CAUTION: LOWER YOUR VOLUME BEFORE PLAYING THE CLIP]:

So, even though the original iPhone was far from perfect and really expensive (actually the Treo 650 was $399, so “expensive” is relative), it blew my Treo out of the water and I jumped on the iPhone train first generation and I never looked back. The Handspring Visor PDA and Treo Smartphones were amazing for their times, but they never quite made their potential and then they got lapped by Apple and later by Android. I really enjoyed the documentary on this amazing early smart-mobile technology.