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So far I have provided a working definition of “app” and showed you what an app typically does and looks like. To gain a better appreciation of apps as a socio-technical system, it is useful to look at the processes by which they emerged.

The classic predecessors of smartphone apps can be found in the so-called handheld devices, which gained their markets in the 1980s and 1990s and persisted until the early 00s. Handheld devices can be seen as part of the long history of the emergence of personal computing, with its debates on the kinds of control that 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 … Developers can either contact them directly or go through major handset manufacturers. (Fitzek & Reichert, 2007, p. 15)

While app developers are reliant on manufacturers and network providers, the threat lies in the fact that “[o]perators are large and powerful players” (p. 15).

There was mounting excitement about the potential for programming and development of mobile applications. Developers and businesses were especially keen to take advantage of, and turbocharge, the enormous flexibility of mobile phones, as these were fast developing in power and sophistication. Mobile phones emerged from a set of industries, global and national policies, legal and regulatory frameworks, work arrangements, and user expectations that were quite different from the IT and software industries and were being reworked through the liberalization of markets and the privatization of key entities, especially telecommunication operators. The telecommunications operators, joined by some new players in the form of mobile carriers and various kinds of telecommunications service providers and resellers, were keen to maintain their vicelike grip on the content and services that were offered across their networks. For their part, the manufacturers had substantial control over the hardware on which mobile applications would run—a “first-mover” advantage of being able to integrate, or at least dictate, the terms in which applications would be offered to users of their devices.

The result was a dispensation that lasted for the best part of a decade, from the late 1990s until 2008, during which the environment for mobile applications was tightly controlled and contested. A wide range of new mobile data services and applications offered by developers, aggregators, or service providers rapidly emerged. The most profitable ones contained games, ringtones, graphics to customize a phone, video, or audio. Some of these services were offered as applications, others were offered via mobile web, SMS, or MMS. Often these services were called “mobile premium services” and offered by a dedicated telephone number range (outside the direct control of the operators), taking advantage of an earlier conceptualization of “valued added services”—that is, services that could be open to competition and that are over and above basic telecommunications ones (Goggin & Spurgeon, 2007).

To offer an app to a mobile phone user, the developer needed to make an arrangement with one of the following entities: a mobile phone operator (e.g. to offer it on its “portal” for download); a handset manufacturer (who might pre-install the application or make it available for download and purchase via his or her “catalog” or dedicated website); a reseller, who offers a range of applications for purchase; or an aggregator, who acts as an intermediary between an operator and a service provider (Goggin, 2011). Suffice it to say, from both the supply side and the demand side of the markets, this was a complicated and confused affair. Despite these challenges, the early 00s offered great opportunities for app developers or service providers who could gain an audience and a following for their program and content, especially ringtones, screen backgrounds, and mobile games.

Contrast this glimpse into the chaotic world of mobile programs and data at the turn of the century with the one afforded by Japan’s celebrated i-mode system and the innovative attempts of the country’s industry pioneers. I-mode was introduced in February 1999 by dominant Japanese telecommunications carrier Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) DoCoMo. I-mode was an ecosystem of mobile Internet, mobile web, content, and services and, crucially, also an integrated billing system (Natsuno, 2003a). In technical terms, i-mode was underpinned by a version of the HTML web standard called c-HTML. The i-mode was tightly controlled by DoCoMo, allowing subscribers to access a wide range of mobile data services—these were forerunners to mobile premium services and to mobile apps and were offered by approved third-party providers—as well as the most popular services such as search, transportation information and maps, news, and weather; popular i-mode services included music, ringtones, and games (Ishii, 2004; Natsuno, 2003b). I-mode rapidly attracted users in Japan: their number rose to 33 million just three years after the launch (Ishii, 2004, p. 44).

I-mode was widely thought to be superior to the alternative offered by the mobile web in the form of WAP services, and Japan was celebrated for eclipsing its European counterparts in mobile Internet innovation (Funk, 2001). WAP was developed by Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and Phone.com in 1997 via their WAP forum. It aimed to unify the already diverse kinds of mobile and wireless technologies and networks that were available. WAP was invented before the smartphone, to run on the mobile phones available from the late 1990s to 2005 (Goggin, 2018). WAP is a protocol that allows mobile phones to display web pages. Over the next decade, a slowly growing number of website and web content providers fleshed out WAP mobile web offerings (Goggin, 2018). For the first few years of its life, WAP fell into disuse and was derided as a “failure” (Haas, 2006; Teo & Pok, 2003). However, it slowly gained momentum, especially in bandwidth-constrained countries. So WAP remains widely used today in browsing websites via mobile devices. Often nowadays mobile users switch fairly seamlessly between an app and a web link that, when they click on it, takes them outside the app, to a mobile website. In this way they encounter WAP.

In this section I have discussed the important immediate predecessors to apps: mobile programming, data, and services; the Japanese i-mode ecosystem; and the mobile web in the form of WAP services. They all anticipate important aspects of smartphones and apps. These histories also point to alternative visions and arrangements for apps that may be now in the background but remain active and could re-emerge down the track.