Not until iPhone.

I carried an iPaq back in 2003/4. It was awful in many ways, but like living in the future with superpowers. I had Google Maps at any time, etc.

I was between jobs when we got married, and my wife and I went on a two month roadtrip for our honeymoon. It was only possible due the iPaq with the combo of Google Maps + a web browser that could access Priceline.com!

Data speed was never an issue, only signal. The good news is that era was where cities started throwing up free Wifi, so it worked out. I'd say that from a UX experience, being one of the few users in 2004 was a better experience than EDGE connectivity or 3G in some areas on the iPhone after it's release!

I remember taking a road trip with my then-fiancée in 2002 and thinking how neat it would be to be able to access Google maps, etc. on the road easily. I had my first Titanium Powerbook back then and when we needed internet, we would find a high school and pull into the parking lot and nine times out of ten there would be an open wifi network with internet access.

People forget that it was the release of the iPhone that caused AT&T and others to offer "unlimited internet". $60 for unlimited internet in 2007.

That was a revolution. Before that, yes, you could run up a massive phone bill.

[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2007/06/26AT-T-and-Apple-Anno...

> $60 for unlimited internet in 2007. That was a revolution.

You mean their fake unlimited plan that resulted in a $60 million fine? That revolution?

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/5/20949850/att-fine-unlimit...

I remember paying metered data that cost around 0.005 cent per kb around 2006 (forgot the actual number but I'm pretty sure it's around that much). Having "unlimited" data is indeed revolutionary.

Yeah, it throttled, but it didn’t randomly send you bills for $1000’s (except maybe if you were near a roaming area).

AT&T offered unlimited internet plans pre-iPhone. I had an unlimited 3G internet plan pre-iPhone. It wasn't intended for PDAs/smartphones at the time but it seemed like they never bothered to check IMEI's for devices they did not sell. I forget the exact price but it was cheaper on the family plan than the unlimited iPhone data plan.

That's not completely correct. My NEC smartphones didn't. Nor did the early BlackBerrys that I used.

I guess that's why NEC and Blackberry never took off in Europe, as the data usage would financially ruin you.

With prices of about 5 euro per megabyte you lived in constant fear of accidentally using data.

Blackberry was quite popular in the UK amongst the corporate users, however BBM universally came with it's own data plans and they had their software running inside the cell providers as well as within the organization itself.

BBM absolutely did take off with youngsters for a while - I sold a lot of blackberries to teenagers in the U.K. in 06.

Blackberry failed for much same reason it failed everywhere else - much better phone platforms came out very quickly etc.

I don't remember Windows Mobile asking for permission to use mobile internet either.

So that's why I used a 100 MB modem plan in my smartphone (then 300MB before cheaper regular phone plans became available). Phone calls were 1.5x the pre-paid rate, but using the Internet somewhat freely was better.

I remember SK feature phones with WAP support that did ask. BB worked slightly different before 3g and it's advancements made mobile internet pretty much "free" for most people.

BlackBerry came with it's own data plans and they had they used integrate with the mobile providers on a much lower level than just internet traffic.

Blackberry OS definitely did this, and it was brilliant because you could allow the NYTimes application to access news.nytimes.com but not ads.adcompany.com.