Apple has changed more than just our way of interacting with our phones when they launched the iPhone. Easier access to applications through a central store has shifted the responsibility of implementing various functions from the manufacturer to 3rd party developers and practic eliminated the boundaries between the various segments making up the mobile phone market. At the dawn of smartphones, Symbian, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile were the main players and while installing apps was possible on each of these, access to said apps was not centralized and prices were usually quite high. This meant that manufacturer preinstalled apps and features were still an important aspect even in the smartphone world. Thus, the various specializes market segments were still extant and defined by them. For example, the business line was usually lacking in terms of multimedia, but excelled when it came to organizers, contact and message management, but also in terms of connectivity; the business line usually had some more advanced multimedia features but was much more focused on looks over function and usually lacked features such as Bluetooth which back then was still a luxury; multimedia phones usually aced the imaging and music departments but left out advanced organizing features.
In the pre-smartphone era this segmentation was even more pronounced, with the user being entirely limited to the features the manufacturer deemed important for that particular phone. Those times gave birth to some completely memorable phones because and not in spite of them being defined by this sinergy between hardware and software which made them powerful, but highly specialized. The main actors on the business scene at the dawn of the 21st century were Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens, and these names have given history some of the most well known phones to ever grace the market which pioneered many fields, such as the T39, R520, the S45 or the 6000-series phones from Nokia, starting with 6110 and culminating in 2002 with perhaps the most popular one of them all: 6310i. It was a minor but important evolution from its direct predecessor 6310 which itself built upon the successful form factor of the 6210 from 2000. 6310i quickly became a favourite of the public and remained a prominent tool in the business sector even after it was discontinued in 2005. Many went so far as to crown it the best phone ever produced by Nokia. But all this begs the question: what were the factors that contributed to this resounding success and why has the 6310i remained just as tied to the Nokia brand as the low-end 3310 model?
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