Apple Wanted This Product Name BADLY - Krazy Ken's Tech Talk

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We all know the Apple iPhone, but do you know of the true, ORIGINAL, InfoGear iPhone from 1998?

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[jsyt]

Imagine an alternate universe full of CIDCO and InfoGear iPhones.

[BakaDani]

When I was in a Cisco class, when I saw that the name of the OS was called IOS I immediately thought of Apple's iOS, so I was curious how Cisco was able to call it that. Well, now I know. How ironic.

[donchaput]

I had some friends get in a Pyramid Scheme with these types of phones promoting them as the future right around 2000. You can guess how well that worked out. lol

[CodeProfessor]

We used Linksys SPA phones at work and I remember wanting a WIP330 so bad. Then I got one and it was the most useless brick I ever owned. 😂

[thescottishman]

I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for the amazing content that you have been producing over the past two years. Your videos are incredibly informative and educational, allowing people like myself to gain a better understanding of the nuances of the general computer world.

I especially appreciate the way you cover the strange and sometimes downright bizarre scams that occur in the tech industry. It's great to see that you take the time to educate your viewers and the general audience about the dangers of these scams, and how to avoid falling victim to them.

Your dedication to providing accurate and insightful information to your viewers is truly admirable, and I can't thank you enough for the time and effort you put into each and every one of your videos.

I wish you all the best, and hope that you continue to produce such amazing content in the future. Thank you again for everything you do.

[TheOriginalCollectorA]

I knew that Apple didn’t actually have the iOS and iPhone name, but I’ve never seen the device to actually start the “iPhone” name. Unfortunate that the internet side of things doesn’t work like back in the day, finding the server side software that ran it is probably next to impossible. Great video!

[simplyalonso]

Damn, i knew Apple had issues trying to coin the iPhone, but I didn't expect the reason as to why to be so interesting!

[SpaceSaver]

I wonder if someone would be able to reverse engineer the client to create a simulated server. Then we could see what the experience would've been like! Although the difficulties would include that a) the servers have been down for awhile b) It's a niche product c) It would require a lot of work.

[XXxerom]

8:14 in Hungary, we actually call the Wi-Fi as "Wiffy". (That's just a fun fact 😄)

[pineappleroad]

Where i live, POTS lines are still used (although not for much longer, everyone is being gradually moved over to what they call “digital voice”)
And i still find it funny that our internet connection literally travels along a telephone line (it used to be all the way from the exchange, but we have since upgraded to an FTTC connection (and as part of the upgrade, we were moved to digital voice), so the connection now only uses the telephone line between the house and the street cabinet, and yes, even before we upgraded, we could use the landline and the internet at the same time (we had to have filters connected to every telephone socket though, otherwise the landline phones could have interfered with the connection))
And some ISPs here are putting stickers over the telephone port on the router indicating that the port should only be used by digital voice customers

[JuanD]

WTF now YouTube videos have trailers? 🤯

[cyberhikerdd]

Reminds me of the Minitel terminals from France and the Prestel terminals from the UK - both predated consumer internet access. They were at their height of popularity in the mid/late 80s.

[GODSPEEDseven]

It shows that a lot of work has gone into this video!!

Thanks man, was a really cool video about something I never even thought I'd care enough about to watch (and enjoy) for 20 minutes.

[QualityDoggo]

Very interesting! I knew about the Cisco/Apple history, but not the other companies that predated Cisco's VoIP phones

[realgtasacramentodashcam]

The senior wig and glasses are still a classic, love it.

[poeterritory]

I always knew the iPhone wouldn't take off.

[kFY]

The UI looks very... 90s Linux-y. The fonts, cursor shapes etc. look very much like old versions of KDE or GNOME. This might be a coincidence (just taking free assets from a free OS) but... I'd still say there's a good chance that there's something if not Linux-y, then at least Unix-y inside. The timing feels a bit off, it's a couple of years before Linux took over the world (of small systems), but stuff like uCLinux was also starting around that time, so it isn't inconceivable. Taking a look inside the firmware would definitely be interesting, if possible. Maybe even hacking this thing back online isn't entirely out of question.

[venrolado]

I worked for Big Planet doing tech support for these iPhones back around 2000. The stories I can tell about the customers, the company, and the salesmen of these phones is just crazy. It was an OK college student job, but pretty stressful at times. As a job perk we got a lot of free cosmetic products every month, so I guess there was that.

[jmackinjersey]

I actually remember seeing these in an office building. In the early 2000's, I worked for the phone company, and I had the opportunity to install a DSL line in a small office. The receptionist asked me to install/hook up/plug in their phone "system". When she pointed to a few milk crates in the corner, with a rat's nest of wires and a few phones, I laughed inside, because I knew that this company was doomed from the beginning. They were too cheap to spring for an actual phone system.

So I got the dial tone to the desks and plugged in their phones. Apparently this was her first day, because she asked me to not only set up the phones, but also teach her how to use all of the features on this. I had no idea, until I watched this video, that they were using the 2nd gen, InfoGear set up. I rummaged through the milk crates and could not find any user manual, so I looked at the screen for a few minutes, pushed the buttons to see what they did and faked the funk while I told the young lady how to use her new toy and "Enjoy."

[BollingHolt]

That's cool. One thing you hardly see anymore are innovations in landline telephones. I know landlines aren't ubiquitous anymore, but I still have one. I can't get rid of it because I have the same phone number my grandparents got in the 1960s, and my family is the ONLY family to have that number, so.... I kinda have to keep it LOL. Besides. I'm 42, and hearing the phones ring throughout the house when a call comes in, be it the real bells or the digital beeps on my cordless, fills me with a warm sense of nostalgia.