Well, there existed phones that were kind of what smartphones became. Blackberries and Palms get a lot of the attention as they were what executives used, but there were also PocketPC devices that were usually white label manufactured HTC devices that were branded after carriers or some other company like HP. They generally were much larger screened devices with a few buttons at the bottom. They were resistive touchscreens so using your fingers was pretty meh for responsiveness, and the UI was just not designed in a way that was pleasant to navigate. Picture a shrunk down desktop interface. I'd say the UI was the biggest shakeup that they did in the product category, followed by steadily raising the bar for hardware in a space that often would have cheap plastic components. Don't get me wrong, I think too much glass and aluminum is actually poorer than something like kevlar especially for dents and dings, but it doesn't look nearly as sexy.
Super Ted! My wife and I loved that when each of us were little. It's one of those things that we've found that most people here in the States don't know about but we have in common.
Is that a rhetorical question? I've had a few Apple products mostly in the past or issued to me from when, but I prefer android even when it can be disappointing to me sometimes. Was launching into nandroid via Haret when Windows Mobile devices were a thing too. I don't prefer Apple stuff but whether it be sincere or perhaps theatrics, it seems like you've got an unnecessary and over aggressive revulsion towards them.
It's interesting you mention Apple because while I have every expectation that you're correct at the moment, the iPod absolutely benefited from piracy. iTunes allowed you to add your own songs to your library to sync with the device, and iTunes could also be argued to have been on a similar model to Steam because you'd pay to 'own' the songs and there was no subscription giving you access to songs.
I don't care about right jeans making me look old because I just can't wait until baggy pants become more acceptable to wear again. Much more comfortable!
My first wasn't even an actual android! I had an HTC touch pro running Haret that would reboot the phone into Android. Was so great despite the quirks and bugs since... well Windows Mobile has plenty of that going on anyway.
Which wouldn't have necessarily been a death knell, except by the point Microsoft had gotten their eggs into the Windows Phone basket, major platforms had already started shutting down functionality that could be accessed through third party applications so the App Store/Play Store official versions were the clearly superior ways to use the platforms.
In many cases, like with reddit even, third party applications are how many people have preferred to access these platforms, so long as the platform doesn't lock down the API to kneecap them.
To hear them tell it, government is the enemy, incompetent, and worse at anything it attempts. Unless they're in charge and levying it against their opponents, of course.
I think the sages are the biggest thing here. The bad guys don't typically do the thing that games like Assassin's Creed bad guys do where your may have a gang of events but they're roughly taking turns coming at you. In TotK, they're just all over you constantly and the most effective way to keep that heat off of yourself is via the sages.
I could be wrong but I think at one point the outside sources toggle was just a one time thing and affected all applications.